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This was the first week of September. The next day
I was to be introduced to the threshing art.
Earl's rig was threshing but a mile away.
I would pitch in the third day from the start
And would have to look after and drive a stook team.
Five dollars a day for me if I learned the knack.
Earl asks, "Have you a bundle, then throw it way back."
This ratified, sealed our gentleman's agreement.
My shirt and socks, wrapped up, into the tent I threw.
Didn't need that case everywhere I went.
Jack said, "Leave it here if you would like to."
Now, give me that old team and rack and a fork toss.
A fork's just right to pitch sheaves or correct a hoss."
Just show that team right from the start who is the boss.
A team and rack came in view as if by magic.
I noticed then one corner at the front was low.
Can a green man ever choose or pick?
Give the guy anything he'll never know.
Give him an old team that's just as sly as foxes.
What does he know about half-sweeneys or hock-es?
Sure, let him take the royal bumps and the knock-es!
That just about expresses it in terms true and precise.
A green man was looked on as the clown in the show.
He can take it two ways, real tough or nice.
If he takes it tough, the deuce will he know.
But I made up my mind, it's true, right from the start,
That how many mistakes I made I'd play the part.
Soon I would be, I knew, the target for the dart.
Now is the time, right here, to introduce the crew.
Quite a cosmopolitan bunch of men we were;
Eleven of us and that is quite true.
So here I give them in the following order:
First, there's Earl, the thresher man, he owns the outfit;
Steam engine, separator and all about it.
He has to know his stuff, don't you ever doubt it.
Then there's Stuart, the engineer, a local man.
He rises at four o'clock in the morning
To steam her up just as fast as he can.
No grousing or grumbling or he gets a warning.
What a most bewitching time to roll out, I say,
With frost in the air there, before the light of day.
We poor jiggers till five just snooze our lives away!
Yes, sir, that lad just moans and groans when he rises.
He would kick that alarm clock for miles if he dare.
That lazy sleeping bunch he despises,
As he staggers into that chilly air.
The old straw-burner's half a mile away, at least.
He cranks his Lizzie and she kicks him back-the beast
"You do that again," he says, "by the--!!"
He rattles away, taking his curses with him,
While loud rasping snores echo round there in the tent.
His stook-dodging Lizz recedes in the dim;
To warm that boiler and himself he's bent.
So go to it, Stuart lad, and poke in the straw.
Try to blow up the old boiler what's the valve for?
Advice enough—I don't want a sock on the jaw!
Russell, a brother of the boss, drives a stook team;
Also the following: one Montrealer, Vic,
And a big French-Canadian, called Jean;
Bert, a local boy, how he liked to dress up slick!
Then George, an oldish man, short and of German birth,
Next, tall Slim, as he was called, him narrow of girth,
And Blighty (me) the only man of any worth!!
Last, but by no means least, there's Dummy from down East.
He was, unfortunately for him, deaf and dumb.
Unfortunately for me, he never ceased
To think I was anything but a bum.
Did 1, by chance, pick up from a row he was on,
He would gesticulate, wave his fork like he was gone-
He was big, tough-in a trice I was away yon.
There are still two men in this gang, one's a flunkey.
The second is the tank man-the water hauler.
The first is the straw boy or straw monkey.
The other, Otto, keeps full the boiler.
The rack on the engine with straw the first one fills.
Otto's team with water loaded dodges the hills.
Six thousand pounds of water is a load that kills.
We didn't have a straw monkey but why worry?
A stook rack was borrowed for the job when needed
And filled by the blower in a hurry
With straw that the fan blades has speeded.
Then the stook team draws it round to the engine rack,
And it's here where Stuart helps by forking it back.
The teamster has to keep moving on, he can't slack.
The men and the grain teams that haul the wheat away,
Back up under the spout to catch the golden grain,
Are hired by the farmer so much a day.
The farmer himself hauls, it is his gain.
Four teams or more needed if the crop's a good one,
Depending also on how long each team is gone.
Keeping grain off the ground it mainly depends on.
Grain storage elevators and the railway lines,
Inseparable assets to this land,
Are collective and indelible signs
Of increasing population, rising demand
For more transport and grain storage utilities.
Extra heavy crops do tax the abilities
Of railway and elevator facilities.
These wooden structures, towering high in the air,
Foster to grain exclusively throughout the West.
Many points may have one or just a pair.
Some may need eight where rain and soil is best.
From thirty- to fifty-thousand bushels of grain
Is stored in fifteen or more bins they each contain;
The more grain handled, the more the financial gain.
Adjoining each elevator, and part of it,
Is the raised unloading platform, grating in floor.
A weigh scale on the platform there doth fit.
To check the total box and load is what it's for.
Then the compressed air dump with steadying strips
Raises high the wagon's front wheels and the grain slips.
Eighty bushels in quick time out the back end tips.
The wheat through the grating pours down into a bin,
Its narrowed outlet leading to each lifting cup.
These on endless belt raise and drop it in
To any one hopper there away up.
The band with the cups, then, is the elevator.
It is the nucleus, the essential data,
Hence the name and how could I the plainer state-er?
Then on the platform side, but some distance away,
Is the metal-enclosed engine house and office,
The last where the farmer receives his pay.
The engine there pops with rarely a miss
Of thirty-five horse plus it elevates the grain
And builds up the pounds per in the air pressure main.
Should either go wrong the Agent sure raises cain!
With the elevator filled, then how to unload?
Where power was required now gravity works.
A freight car is spotted on the railroad.
On the track side there a string of them lurks.
A car up to two thousand bushels is ready.
The flexible delivery pipe held steady
Then grain with much force strikes in widening eddy.
Cars, eight feet six, by eight, by thirty-six feet, run
Approximately forty thousand pounds, less freight,
Two thousand bushels of wheat-sixty ton
Gives maximum of eighty tons dead weight.
Compare these to those little Old Country playpens;
Compare one hundred long-one hundred short hyphens.
This Country's locos handle real heavy burdens.
Very often a car, not being spotted just right,
A car-mover can be used to roll it along.
This strong handled device hugs a wheel tight.
The flanged steel foot fits the wheel like a song.
The handle is pivoted at its lower end.
Its extended short steel arm, curved, fits the wheel's bend,
Mechanical advantage-the power to send.
Permanent steel steps built on the end of each car
Lead to the hand-operated brake wheel above.
These brakes, intended for local use, are
Released preparatory to the hefty shove
Transmitted by the car-mover to the car wheel,
When firm downward pressure on the handle will feel
Out friction, o'ercome it, give impetus to steel.
The car slow moving, the handle down, then slap, slap,
As the mover follows the wheel, then up, then down
Goes the handle to that sharp tinkly rap.
Now we are gaining, we're going to town.
A strong back and muscle's just needed for the trick,
A slight down grade, one heave and the going's slick
Slight up grade, one heave and, my back-Have I a crick!
We had a cook car with us, a kitchen on wheels.
This was the one essential on this threshing job.
Earl's wife reigned supreme and prepared the meals,
Forty-five, plus lunch daily for the mob.
This lunch in the morning and in the afternoon-
Cakes, sandwiches and coffee-never came too soon.
Man, could I eat, tighter than a toy balloon!
This cook car of size, I would say, sixteen by ten,
Had cook stove in one corner and all utensils;
Long table with board seats to feed the men
Where each with the best of food quickly fills-
Meat, murphies, vegetables and pie thrice daily.
These boys work hard and are never "off" or "aily."
They work fast, talk fast, eat fast and swear quite gaily.
A disappearing bed there is, right by the door,
The room it takes up much needed during the day.
Each night the mattress sags till the hour, four,
Then it's given the boot and put away.
And in that chilly dark there, long before the dawn,
The mistress lights the oil lamp till the coming morn.
The maid, shiv'ring, wishes she had never been born.
The stove is lighted with kindling there left ready.
That shell of a place heats up just as fast as it cools.
The fire crackles, the kettle sings, steady
Do they prepare a "Paradise for fools."
Then at the stroke of five, the darkness almost spent,
"Coo-ee, Coo-ee," echoes there, from cook car to tent.
A sleeper's fair warning to rise and dine is meant.
A bunk car generally completes the equipment,
Where the crew, after supper, right there congregates.
But we discussed, cussed and slept in a tent.
Bunk and cook cars are identical mates.
Each has three or four steps leading up there within.
For an hour there's chin wagging, much row and much din,
The glim's doused, slumber reigns-no more row-no nothin'.
Back twenty years and before, those steam outfits
Held sway, some gasoline and oil rigs you would see,
But tradition's crown on the steamer sits,
Indispensable to the West was she.
Now those time-honored glories are in the discard,
Their castings salvaged and the rest scatter the yard.
Hats off to the old steamer! Sentiment dies hard.
The separator's hauled out to the field of stooks
Slowly and with care behind that puffing billy,
While Earl away ahead intently looks
For a place to set, level, not hilly.
He locates a spot, the center of a square,
Handy for the teamsters to load all the stooks there,
Hauling them in certain order till the square's bare.
Now, in a wide sweep and converging on the set,
Stuart feels out the wind and heads right into it.
He stops a minute then creeps farther yet,
The thresher wheels ease into holes that fit,
Dug there by Earl, the pull on the belt they withstand.
The engine pulley trued, the belt's slipped on by hand
Then back, the crossed belt tight, block the wheel to the land.
Before that hundred-foot by eight-inch belt is tight,
The first rack, loaded, draws in alongside the feeder.
Then, the next man, gauging the distance right
Stops on far side opposite the leader.
The team on the right side then is facing the back.
The left side team nods and blinks at the engine stack.
Each, when pulling out empty, makes a right hand track.
Earl, now steadied on the rear side, cranks the ring gear.
This swivels and raises the blower from its lair
Lengthwise on the sep's back and lying near,
Tracing a rising circle through the air
The blower, to the desired position, is spun.
Like a tail vane it points the wind's destination,
Straw, like golden lava, volcanos by the ton.
A ten-foot sloping feeder, a traveling band
Feeds sheaves to twine cutters, then the tooth cylinder
At twelve hundred revs, with whirling speed and grand
Flails out grain on projections that hinder.
These spike teeth (revolving) clear the concave bars (fixed)
By one fourth inch or less, straw and grain, churned and mixed.
The first is thrown on the straw rack while the grain sinks.
It falls through the slotted bars to a sloping pan
Then by augers is elevated there on top.
Straw from the shakers is sucked by the fan
Where it's given a terrific wallop.
The grain lastly, falls into a split apartment
Of half bushel size, its weight tips the department.
Grain falls through a slot then fills the twin compartment.
Half bushel dumps of grain then, in quick succession,
Slide down the spout if the crop is good and heavy.
It's all required to beat depression.
Just living is a capital levy.
Two wagons, one a spare, are backed there angleway,
Allowing the belt side teamster sufficient play,
When empty, to make that right turn and drive away.
This costly array of horses, men and machines,
Their tasks performed with clock-like regularity,
All were required, the essential means
To remove grain from straw with alacrity.
The farmer and the thresher man there by the wheat
Shout at each other above the clangor and beat
Of wheels, belts, shakers, "How's the price of wheat on
street?"
From description now to life and that in the raw
To that busy harvest scene will I now return,
To describe true those threshing days of yore
So hearken to me close and you will learn
How fate and circumstance, surely brothers akin,
Did verily contrive, that wheel of fate to spin
But was it fate or nags started me a'cussin'?
That gray and bay and rack lopsided, they were mine,
No young team and just as canny as they made 'em.
Their threshing days past were many in line.
The old dodges were all well known to them.
I drove them along and pulled up beside a row.
They stopped short, that wise old pair before I said "Ho!"
Would they stir, do you think, when I wanted to go?
When those traces at last were finally tightened,
They described a beautiful arc straight for a stook,
Grabbed sheaves with looks knowing and enlightened.
Tell that green guy to take his blooming hook!
Thosenose guards they were wearing, well, now, they
weren't,
To slip them off neatly in their young days had learned.
I yanked them away, was my temper getting burnt!
I was amazed at the language floating around.
One of them on the next row with half a load on
Was roundly swearing with many a pound.
His team I could see for a stook had gone
He gave them the fork handle, jerking hard the line.
"Damn your lousy hides," he roars, "you cursed she swine,
Get over, now stand still or I'll give you the tine!"
I couldn't understand all that swearing right then.
It seemed terrible to me the language they used.
They never spoke without swearing often.
All things dead or alive were damned or abused.
Those horses I admit were the very deuces.
I said nix, but thought the more, granting excuses,
But such rank swearing never had any uses.
Memory still lingers round that first harvest day.
Past time and distance together lend enchantment
To that field north of the bend where it lay.
Could it have been a picnic encampment?
Time will ne'er erase that indelible setting
Will fade when memory fades - into forgetting
Thus rosy dreams and life's pageants, netting.
This memory picture reflects truly the scene,
"Where every prospect pleases, only man is vile."
Cherish the beautiful, cast off the mean,
This is the shining goal ever worth while.
The brilliant sun set in that circle of blue.
The air clear as crystal where sound carries true,
Light wind, rising smoke, dust o'er trails, clinging thereto.
Reflection's grand but reality must be faced.
Here I was with a task unfamiliar and tough.
I sweat some that first day, time and I raced,
Keeping my place or cale I found hard enough.
Each team, to the feeder there, must in order draw.
Eight teams, four each side, each keep the unwritten law.
Think I would miss my place, what were they waiting for?
At last my load was on, around two hundred sheaves.
I gave my three-tine fork a flip, it sailed clean o'er.
Round I ran, picked it up and who believes?
I flipped it back the selfsame way once more,
Cussing I picked it up again, set it with care,
Climbed up front, stepped on the gray's rump and leaped up
there.
"Hey hup," I shouted, "shake a leg you lazy pair!"
I held my arms straight in manner professional,
Balanced unsteady on that load of sheaves,
The Hitler stand - very impressional!
Waiting expectantly for signs of heaves.
They did, they heaved together and away we went.
The climax was near - that first pulling-in event.
Could I close woo that belt without rip, rent or dent?
The threshing scene was active, teams were on the move;
Two unloading and one team there each side, waiting.
Acres of stubble showing bare and smooth,
Four men always out, stooks elevating;
A grain team pulls out slowly with a heavy load.
A returning team empty shows up on the road.
A quick trip, the dust trailing, the team puffed and blowed.
My old plodders pulled up and stopped by the steamer.
What's a little noise, excitement or smoke to them?
This was old stuff and each was a dreamer.
They settled on three legs and dreams took 'em.
From my vantage point I close watched that humming scene.
Sheaves volleyed and fell and the feeder took them clean,
Mountain of straw rising where a mole hill had been.
The teamster ahead had worked himself to the boards.
The rack sways sideways as he forks over the rest.
Now he quick gathers last straws center-wards.
Then to the feeder with flourish and zest
He sets his fork with knack in its appointed place,
Unwraps his lines with that same familiar pace.
His team's out and away at the snap of the lace.
I was on the load there just waiting for this cue.
The second he started my nags were on the move.
It he could do it, I could do it, too.
I endeavored to follow in his groove.
It's true I seesawed a little this way and that,
Scared first I'd be too close or away off the bat,
But wonder of wonders I ended up dead pat.
Just luck, pure luck, plus a little bit of trying,
This thing I worried over vanished like thin air.
Half life's strain here summed up and implying
A mental mirage high beyond compare.
The nearer we approach some anxious testing time,
Like the mirage, our fears recede, ambitions climb,
Foreboding, misgiving, then mastery sublime.
Suspense passed and over I stood on firmer ground,
Feeling like a diver up for a breath of air,
Catching a new glimpse of life's every sound.
A somber scene now changed to passing fair,
Buoyed up mentally by that small thing accomplished.
Like a little job started, well done and finished,
Such comforts from life's troubled seas all men have fished.
The next two days, like weeks, dragged on, on leaded feet.
"Hang on two days and then you'll stick," Jack said - quite
true
I hung on, on "leaded" feet through the heat.
I stayed with the gang more than three weeks through,
Till the teams all went home and the crew were scattered;
Till the fields were but memories bare and unhatted;
Till the fires all died and nothing else mattered.
But that day was not yet. I won't think of the end.
The beginning's just begun with a tale to tell.
I remember to Jack's that first night I did wend.
He said sure I could sleep there just as well.
His brother Alvin would be there a day or two.
He was from Detroit, sleep with him, would I so do?
We had slept three at home so two was nothing new.
Just a small incident it was I now recall,
Though, subconsciously it had a load of meaning,
As, tossing on the bed I heard him call
"Are you 'American"?" in his dreaming.
I answered not a word and nothing more was said,
But that subject he had close pondered in his head,
Expressing it so plainly from that sleeping bed.
We moved away from Earl's place just northeast to Paul.
Many trees were there and our tent was pitched within.
And it was here I landed in my first pitfall
And Paul himself had the first long grin.
I was picking up sheaves nice, just south of the trees.
Paul came up and said, "Blighty, those are mine, not these."
I threw Bill's sheaves off the rack, anything to please.
When I came to think it over it did seem weird.
All was very still, no other team in sight.
Something was bound to be wrong, as I feared;
To pinch a neighbor's sheaves, well, was it right?
Paul explained that his land and Bill's adjoined right there,
"Was just a natural mistake, so don't despair."
Just north of those trees I should have been - or somewhere.
George and his skinny old team, Fannie and Gwennie,
Come into the picture on an amusing note,
For he traveled the roads, miles a'many,
Back home every night to his spouse remote.
He walked in the cook-car right at breakfast time-o.
"By golly, it vos four mile from here to me I know!"
He informed us in his German-English lingo.
In the field our George, he was a doubtful asset.
"Giddap, Fannie, giddap, Gwennie," this followed by
Yards of German curses but did he get
A full load? Often he was a third shy.
He kept his place at the expense of his load.
And as the day wore on and his team slowed and slowed
So his rack lightened or the pair wouldn't a "goed."
Was on this place the Fall's first heavy frost caught us.
At five that love call, "Coo-ee, coo-ee," came seeping.
Some heard, some not, some gave a mighty cuss.
But was that air chilly round me sweeping!
I grabbed my twin three-in-one pair of socks - my hat!
Two sweat frozen chunks of sock, stiff as a dead cat!
I leaned them up together and they stood there pat!
I pounded those socks good and hard against my boots,
To drive out the frost and limber up the stiffness
To ease my feet therein I had my "doots,"
This unmended six of dormant whiffness.
But I squeezed 'em in and they clung tight, like leeches,
A cold and clammy pack round my lower reaches
Here's where a man needs that humility of preaches.
But this was just practice before the main event.
My boots, that outsize pair, had shrunk in every seam.
I heaved, pulled and grunted, till I was spent.
The toes went in but not the heels, could I scream!
I lugged on those boots till I was a ruddy hue.
I damned and cussed those boots but what good did that do?
The bally jiggers out the tent I should have "threw!"
The fellows were moving out ready for breakfast.
I was still sitting there a'wrestling with those boots.
"So long, Blighty, too bad you'll be the last."
That sarcasm irked me down to the roots,
Was enough, my heels went in with a double snap.
They were on, could stay on, till threshing's done, mayhap.
I pondered on China when limping that last lap.
We had our teams tied to racks anywhere outside.
Some sleepless guy arose at four to feed them sheaves,
But tank and grain teams in the barn could bide.
Wisdom decreed such comforts each receives.
Five-thirty; the air full of jingles and shouting,
The harness stiff with frost after a night's outing.
It was tough on bare hands, I just stood there doubting.
Then along comes Earl's Dad with a kind helping hand.
"How's it going?" he asks, or words to that effect.
An old man he was but to me real grand.
He harnessed the team, could I more expect?
He lives in my memory, aye, fresh to this day.
He rode with me on the rack as we pulled away,
Four miles west, west of Jack's place where our next job lay.
The bay, lazy like, lagged behind his mate, the gray.
His life's one ambition was NOT to get ahead.
"Give me your fork and I'll show you the way
To make him step," quietly to me he said.
"Hold the lines tight, now poke him firmly in the rump.
Use the handle, won't hurt, the shock will make him jump."
It did - he was ahead for once, the lazy lump.
Reminiscences and faces linger anew.
Fresher they seem on looking back over the years.
Time's curtain drawn presents a rosy hue.
By-pass the sad days and forget the tears.
But yet the drab, the unhappy, the commonplace
Are stepping stones to a receptive tranquil pace.
Who is attuned to life unless he's known the base?
To return to Paul's place on that first raw cold morn.
I shivered in my jeans as I drove up the field,
Steely blue the West, East the ruddy dawn,
Slowly the frost to the sun's rays doth yield,
As he, old Sol, most welcome friend, just tips the land.
He squints then looks, then on the very edge doth stand.
He beams and scatters mellow light on every hand.
Jack Frost, fast fleeing before those heat giving rays,
Leaves shiny points of dew on myriad straws and weeds.
The horses' feet swish through and the dew sprays.
Exposed heads on stooks catch those dewy beads.
In less than an hour that starry pattern fades out,
Nature's own pageant put on without flair or shout.
I pitched those sheaves and, with a will, the breeze still cool.
In an hour, the heat gaining, my tweed coat I shed,
These lessons hard but in a healthy school.
Then lunch brought by a grain team shows ahead.
I stir myself to be away yonder and near
That old steamer where the lucky ones sample the cheer.
The poor fellows' prospects out picking up are drear.
But still it's not so bad as that. They'll have a bite,
But the best will be gone and the coffee cooled down.
The cups will be bandied from left to right,
For there never were enough to go roun'
So first come first served and he with a ringside seat.
While Earl throws off the load and he sits down to eat,
Though not to feel blown out or even feel replete.
Three minutes or five and I am renewed again,
Relieve Earl of the fork, then thank him most kindly.
Sheaves fly for a while like wind-driven rain,
While Earl strikes a course for lunch not windly,
Six hours before noon, lunch smack in the center.
One afternoon I missed, without lunch I went-er.
My middle, once convex, had a concave dent-er!
The width across my gray tweeds increased and increased,
When, towards evening, sideways I couldn't be seen.
Water I drank in quarts, a barren feast.
I swished around like a waterlogged bean.
It may read funny but that's not the way I felt.
The sun after the frost was hot enough to melt
And was I full of nothing right there by the belt!
Canadians, by and large, and threshers mainly
Believe wholeheartedly in the saying - "eat and run."
I liked to fill up slowly and sanely.
Always they were away ere I was done.
A long long table, empty and me at the helm,
Feeling like the one guy in the whole bloomin' realm.
Why didn't they wait for me but could I tell 'em?
At long last I was through, my dents were rounded out.
My longing for pie was dead, anathema, in fact.
Ileft, the fellows sitting there about.
When quietly but with overburdened tact,
Stuart, just behind says, "Here, Blighty, here's your hat."
None of those lads had played valet to me 'fore that,
And well knowing Stuart's fooling - I smelt a rat.
My nice tweed nick hat he handed me right side up.
He was smart and scheming but not just smart enough.
S'picious I looked within to see what's up.
And sure enough some whitish sticky stuff
Reposed down in the hollows there aside each nick;
Pie filling or some such; too bad he missed the kick
Of seeing my hair plastered sticky white and slick.
We picked up wheat, we picked up oats and then came flax,
That loose tangly stuff of golden shivery balls.
"Blighty," said Stuart, "when you load this on racks
Build up the sides like a couple of walls.
Then fill up the middle," and so far he was right.
"Then climb up and tramp 'er, yes, sir, tramp 'er down
tight!" He had missed one good laugh but another was in sight.
The flax was loaded and no trick was suspected. His
instructions were followed right to the letter.
I waded in - I was so directed.
I sank out of sight - should have known better.
But I rose above it and, boy, I packed it firm.
I'll say I was serving my apprenticeship term.
Is there one thing more lowly than a crawly worm?
That visage of Stuart's sure slipped, it did I swear.
Suddenly I was the center of attraction,
The chaps all sporting a goggle-eyed stare
To view a feat of muscular action
And I, quite unaware of all this excitement,
Jabbed my fork in the mass, a fatal indictment.
Then came the dawn of stark cold enlightenment.
I heaved on the handle - it described a fine arc
But the tines were anchored in foundations secure.
"Any trouble?" That sarcastic remark
Urged me to efforts decisive and sure.
I backed up my feet, those boots, were they the culprits?
I tried to rout Newton's law but had to cry quits.
Was there ever a picture so full of misfits?
I jabbed at a corner and gave a mighty jerk
Then up reared a straggly shaped sausage of flax,
Now followed a bit of dextrous work
To sever the tail from the parent rack,
An eight foot long streak of it wiry and flaxey.
A tug of war, can I make it, was I waxy?
It let go, almost I landed on my back-see!
Stuart settled himself, an intent spectator,
Happy author of this hectic farce through scheming.
The joke's all yours, it will end sooner or later,
So enjoy your ecstasy of dreaming.
All good things come to an end and so do the bad.
Have you never had it said to you, ever been had?
The flax came off at last and was I ever glad!
The next week came to an end, a perfect ringer;
Monday to Saturday, each day without a break,
Clear sky, no wind, rain, no stoppage bringer,
These, the essentials a ringer to make
Saturday night, that one happy night of eating.
He sleeps, no calls at his subconsciousness beating.
He lays around Sunday's passing hours and fleeting.
One afternoon Bert's team, a pair of smallish bays,
With full load on were standing quietly in the sun,
While Bert, not close, indulged his cussing ways.
Did the whistle blow and was it for fun?
Was it a jack rabbit? I now remember not.
But I saw them start, run, then hit a real fast trot.
A hero's role, I ran, but listen what I got.
They galloped away, a'scattering sheaves at will,
Circled for half a mile then petered out and stopped.
I couldn't catch 'em, might as well kept still.
Bert went for them so mad he almost hopped.
Then he drove them hard back with the lines on their rumps,
Pulls up mighty short, sees me and then down he jumps,
Still cursing and swearing at those damned stupid lumps.
"You stay out of my damned business," he roars, like that.
"What in hell right have you to meddle?" he goes on.
"This outfit's mine and I know what I'm at."
Was it such an insult to help someone?
I just stood there and gaped in wondering amaze.
Why he was mad at me I'll ponder all my days.
Has chivalry no standard here, it never pays?
Of all the varied incidents this stands ahead,
One where, in truth, camaraderie has no place.
Was his way of life to this standard wed?
Or were his saner moments full of grace?
I can but give him the benefit of the doubt.
Once bitten, twice shy, could I again help him out?
Never: If I saved his life, would be a death bout.
One morning later on Bert again bawled me out.
What a blind and deaf guy was I, and maybe dumb.
As, pointing wildly with many a shout,
He failed to stop me, that green horn, the bum.
What's he got now, I mused, another sort of pain?
What a fellow! Is he ever sober or sane?
What's he hollering for? He's off his rocker, that's plain.
Then I noticed the tongue of the wagon (how smart),
The front end of it a'churning up the stubble.
Something, it seemed to me had come apart
And that I was headed for some trouble.
Then the trouble arrived when Bert came up and said,
"Blighty, one of these days, you see, you'll wake up dead.
You'll be one stiff Englishman, cold and departed!"
But Bert didn't say that, he couldn't argue thus.
His language blossomed forth in much more forceful style.
He - never mind, it ended with a cuss.
What he meant was - I should ponder awhile.
Now suppose that team had run away (what a hope!)
On full gas up to now I'd only made 'em lope
But I visioned results and what a ghastly scope!
Quite true, one day I swear that lazy team woke up.
Instead of stopping obligingly at a stook,
They did, a cute scheme in their heads make up,
Determined, yes, to lake their blooming hook!
Like Felix the cat they just kept on walking
With their tails behind them, was no use me talking.
I'd have to swap words for action and quit gawking.
A fine thing, them taking the law in their own hands.
Did they think they could better that record of Bert's?
My fork I threw - into a stook it lands
Then I a fine sprint did to catch the squirts.
I legged it on two feet while they legged it on four.
The rear end of that rack, I would make it, I swore.
I did, then up the back like a monkey I tore.
Over the top I went weaving a wavy track,
Feeling, I admit like a clown in a circus
As I bounced along that rickety rack.
That wise old team had done it a' purpose.
The rack was empty except for sheaves few,
A light load, that was just the time to run they knew,
And list now, did I hear a horse-laugh from those two!
Unexpectedly a break came, the first so far,
As rain clouds blew in from the West covering the sun.
We imagine things will stay as they are,
Then suddenly it's all over and done.
Over two weeks' hard going but for Sundays' rest,
No longer workers, each now the thresherman's guest.
Both men and horses relax at nature's behest.
What a grand and glorious feeling! It was for me
A happy and wonderful respite, Heaven-sent.
Like the cage door open, the bird set free,
I would fly away on happiness bent
Or snooze after dinner lost in that blissful sea,
Unconscious of deep waters ahead, around me,
But safe in the calm, that calm of tranquility.
Compare the sunlit prairie to this cloudy drab.
Think of blue horizons, then think of weeping skies,
Like beauty laid low by a fatal stab,
The prairie mourns beneath the clouds when the sun dies;
Brown earth, stubble, bare pastures and a treeless expanse,
The green of the Summer gone doth but the drear enhance.
Desolate scenery, aftermath of the fairy dance.
These thoughts: were the other fellows so affected?
Did Vic or Jean blossom forth into rhapsodies?
No, Sir, those fellows had all collected
To follow some other real urgent bizz.
In an old building, empty, their fortunes to make,
All squat on the floor to play cards or dice to shake.
Well, that's all right, I shan't suffer any heartache.
But I was wrong again as usual. It seems
Foolish I was to poke my head inside the door.
Curiosity triumphed over daydreams;
And what an animated scene I saw.
Dummy was yapping, all the while gesticulating.
Otto and Jean were heatedly altercating.
Otto's lack of funds was proving irritating.
Then I showed up at this dire and dark'ning moment,
Whether for them or for me I'm not quite certain.
"Blighty, lend me some dough, I'm badly bent."
Was this for me the drop of the curtain?
Would Otto want five dollars to bolster his luck?
Then Jean says, "Blighty, you skinflint, lend him a buck."
And Otto says, "I'll pay you back, I'm no damned crook!"
I placed a dollar bill in Otto's outstretched hand.
He was almost in a recumbent position.
He teetered on one elbow. Need he stand
To receive this financial addition?
Quickly the game was on and I was forgotten.
As for Otto, well, his principles were rotten.
I should have invested that dollar in cotton!
A wind rose, the clouds broke, the sun shone through a rift.
The sun's rays split and, on the rain drops reflected,
Imprints an arc on the eastern cloud drift.
Twin rainbows on the blue gray perfected
The brilliant first one mirroring the second.
The life of them both is but a short span reckoned,
As the sun, dying, to the skyline is beckoned.
At nine, quarter time, we resumed the threshing game.
By then the sun and wind had chased the damp away,
Feeling fine and in a happier frame,
We proved the saying - "all work and no play."
The hours sped and the sun neared his western exit.
That well of endeavor needs but a short respite.
Man is no machine, though made to precision fit.
A few more days of steady work and then the rain
Grants us still again another half day of leave.
Dinner I eat in thankful mood and sane,
While for the afternoon my plans I weave.
The rain stopped and my plans into thin air receded.
A chance to ride to the Butte, just what I needed,
In Russell's Chev with the boys to town, we speeded.
There was Russell, Vic, Jean and Slim and then me.
I was sandwiched in between thin Vic and stout Jean.
Five miles of phone poles slid past merrily.
The best and nicest trip there's ever been.
What did we talk about? I just don't remember.
A peaceful trip that humid day in September
But it changed, going back to stormy December.
We stopped at the hotel on the corner by Main,
Those fellows disappearing as if by magic.
I could do as I please, would I complain?
Still, I marveled at their vanishing trick.
About them I forgot and followed my own bent,
Walked a few yards then into the poolroom I went,
Resting on a long seat one happy hour I spent.
The scene was familiar, the very first place
I had walked into on that August day.
Was it three years before? Time goes apace.
No, was but three weeks since I asked my way.
Old Bill his customers served, the meanwhile dusting
Or real shining things up, permitting no rusting
In a deliberate manner, old and trusting.
A few fellows were there, playing snooker or pool,
To the accompaniment of sultry cussing.
These useless comments form a prairie rule.
Maybe I'm biased or always fussing,
But I like any game where the best fellow wins,
Without remarks or pandemonium of dins.
It seems to me "game" here is not sport but killings.
I lolled on that hard seat, just thinking things over,
Till one elbow ached then I'd switch to the other,
Or sit bolt upright aching all over.
Then I moved to give room to another,
A rugged man with moustache and whiskers aside,
Sits down easy beside me, then "How do -" he cried.
An old timer was Jim from my own Country side.
A hard voice he had and he talked, though somewhat loud,
Of the things he'd accomplished from a meager start.
He wasn't boastful but was justly proud.
After many years, often losing heart,
Finally the farm was his, the price had been paid.
A threshing rig was bought with money he had made.
He had a family and car, he asked no aid.
I talked with Jim many times and called his place
And visited once or twice when working near by.
But the years rolled on and I missed his face.
Every mortal at death's call has to die.
Jim passed on and a link with the past was broken.
Life's intangibility - 'tis but a token
A flimsy bridge leading whither and who knows when?
Jim left. I stood up lazily and soon followed.
The afternoon's quiet was ended, but meantime
Seeds of human perverseness, deeply sowed.
Blossomed forth in those four pals, were they prime?
In other words the hotel had swallowed them up
And they had swallowed the beer which was no mere sup.
They were muddled but happy to the brim of the cup.
The Chev was still standing there just where it was left,
And a sack of potatoes reposed in the rear,
Innocent victims of one wit bereft,
Who thought they were apples - so worked his beer.
We set out, I remember, seated as before
But I never imagined they were three sheets o'er,
Till Russell slumped over the wheel about to snore.
"'Wash' me," he says, in his drinky voice, "now 'wash' me.
Skim them damn telephone poles, no more'n a foot."
He close missed two and was making for three.
I thought someone should tap him on the nut.
Then Vic leans over, gives him hell and grabs the wheel.
He yanks him upright, "Now drive straight, you blasted
heel.
Vic could stand more, he was still on an even keel.
So he steered for the road, Russ was doing thirty.
We bounced along pretty hard but we finally made it.
"You're out if there's anything more dirty."
The scare did it; he was slightly more fit.
Then Jean holds up a bottle and takes a long swish,
Gulp, gulp, "Here, Blighty, have a swig, hang on to thish."
Now I was cornered, oh, what a kettle of fish!
Vic now sat down and straightway produced another.
I never saw so many beer bottles before.
Bottles were passed from one to the other,
Then something diff'rent lit out through the door.
A spud with a chunk out of it went sailing wide.
"Ouch," said Jean, "don't like 'em." And another he shied.
Then more beer bottles were spun out from either side.
Jean kept on, "Take a drink, you gotta take a drink."
And he chews a few more spuds and out they go.
Then Vic says, "You don't have t', I don't think.
I can stand a lot, I'm not canned you know."
So while Jean chewed and threw spuds, Vic took my bottle.
A frothy trail slid down him to the last spottle.
Jean was satisfied it had gone down my throttle.
These incidents happened all in a few minutes.
Jean finally realized that the spuds were spuds.
The last bottle popped so now it was quits.
One I refused - a bunch of simple duds;
I can see Earl waiting there now when we drove in.
He sensed the layout and gave Russ a real talking.
The last meal was quiet - the rest were recup'rating!
I remember the day when Jean was feeling "sick."
He laid off work and the others were out of hand.
I had the impression it was a trick.
Ultimatum it was — a wage demand.
The same fever was spreading amongst all the crews.
One dollar raise, then if not, all work we refuse.
They won, the farmer pays. Do threshers ever lose?
So now we were getting six good dollars a day.
But the end of the Season's threshing was nearing.
This late seasonal demand I've heard say
Comes up each Fall, like clockwork appearing.
If the crop's a light one, the thresher man is boss.
A good crop, help scarce, then this demand they toss.
I thanked them inwardly, "Get just as much as poss."
Thrifty by nature, my savings were all intact.
My stooking wages there in my back pocket lay.
I didn't bet or booze and that's a fact.
Then how could I spend it and in what other way?
I was swindled out of five bucks in Central Butte
When I bought a pair of light canvas shoes so cute.
My boots were gone, very soon those shoes followed suit.
Those campaign boots never wore out, just disappeared.
Old soldiers never die, they simply fade away.
After three weeks holes in my shoes appeared,
The tops had parted and were all afray.
From a striding clodhopper to a hush hush man,
I felt so light and free like little Peter Pan.
But the bubble burst, you see, like all bubbles can.
The last Saturday rolled around and with it the urge
To paint the village one last and glorious red.
The last rites to threshing, one real grand splurge,
Drink and forget those threshing days now dead.
Dummy's team, poor devils, had a grueling trip,
With his squat form behind them they needed no whip.
Mighty scared of him were they, him and his dumb lip.
I can see him now clearly that night after dark,
His large and bulky form against the starry sky,
Glued to that rack, a demon bare and stark,
Driving like mad, his team could do or die.
Four miles to the Butte they galloped and harder yet.
I saw them in the barn, lathered and dripping wet,
And that slave driver didn't do it for a bet.
Vic's one song I recall ere this threshing closes.
From the top of his load Vic blossomed forth at times.
A sordid human tale it discloses,
Untruths, court actions and various crimes.
His mellow voice rings out upon the balmy air.
All those near, listen in rapt attention and rare.
Vic, the actor, warming up adds many a flair.
"One morning in the Courthouse the boy stood up for trial
And as he stood before the Judge," the song doth run.
And Vic booms, "On his face there was a smile,
Then up spake his father. "This is not my only son.' "
Louder sings Vic, " 'I've got three more at home like him,
And I'll bring them one by one? " then I glance at Slim.
Vic's in his element, full of gusto and vim.
The song is repeatable though I won't repeat.
Vic warbles it lustily to its sad sad end.
The fellows grin, they've never heard the beat.
Now to the threshing their energies bend.
One minute's interlude in a long working day,
The crew's entertainer, I'm sure, is well worth his pay.
The work loaf grows big leavened with a little play.
Comes the last load and in happy celebration
A stiff jack rabbit carcass zooms against the tin.
Thrown in spontaneous exultation,
Fur flies, then crack, wham, as it's whipped within,
Mashed in the cylinder, sifted, mixed with straw,
Bones like bullets rattle the fan, then up they soar.
In a jiff, Jack defunct scatters the straw pile o'er.
The racks now are empty and the teams are away,
Straw from the blower still floats in a thin stream o'er.
Always some sheaves under the feeder lay.
These are picked up, thrown in and now - no more.
Speed reduced, light load, then the blower's breath shows
clear.
Stop the works, boys, threshing's done for another year.
Happy time and sad, tempers our cheers with a tear.
Pay day came, the last pay day, but for me the first.
This was quite new to Earl, the rest some pay had drawn.
I too had vices but I wasn't cursed
With, neither with that spending demon born.
So I pocketed the dough, for the full amount
For three weeks steady threshing, it squared the account.
I could weather the rough backed by that money fount.
Pay day reminded me of that day earlier on
When another green man with Earl threw in his lot.
He, one day did sweat, by night he was gone.
One day he threshed and was paid on the spot.
Now, he had crossed the sea and endured the briny
To emblazon his name in deeds bright and shiny.
His scroll was unreadable, the words too tiny.
Those impressions of threshing, then, now are ended
And, like first impressions in clear relief they stand.
Those first, later threshing days transcended,
Like fresh furrows opening up new land,
Like a new and unknown winding trail, freshly trod,
Where each new turn and view receives a happy nod.
Frequent trips produce that steady comforting plod.
The trail beckons me on over bare stubble fields,
Back to that field, that day, where first I started out.
A spell of loneliness over me steals,
The gatherin's dismissed - I must look about.
Good-bye to the crew and to you, you horsey pair,
This parting is it - I offer a thankful prayer
My normal temper will return, now you aren't there.  |
