"Beds of amaranth and moly,
Where soft winds lull us breathing lowly,"
can surpass a Canadian garden, brimming with the old-fashioned flowers
beloved in childhood. As I linger among them the years fall from me
like an "envious shadow." I press the delicate blooms to my face, inhale
their fragrance, and let my whole being vibrate with the joy of life
until my heart joins in the morning chorus of the birds. And then the
great sun swings up and the day's work begins.
_July 22._--For the past few days we have been hauling in hay and
hustling like a gang of lightning-rod peddlers following up a
destructive thunderstorm. And I have built my first stack. That may not
seem a very startling statement to a tired business man, but I beg to
assure all such that a stack of blue grass and a stack of blues are two
entirely different things. The method of building them is not the same,
and a stack of blue grass goes farther in feeding the cattle than a
stack of blues in feeding the kitty. But sh-h-h! I should not be
introducing these esoteric terms of high finance into innocent pastoral
scenes.
To return to the stack--I feel fairly proud of it. It is more
symmetrical than I thought I could ever make one, and it is settling
down on its foundation like a benediction. Having seen real farmers, who
are reputed to be good stack-builders, get down off their stack and run
for a rail to prop it up so that it would not fall over, it gives me a
glow of satisfaction to see my first attempt sitting as upright as a
pyramid. Whenever I have nothing else to do when I am smoking my pipe
after dinner, I always wander to some spot where I can see and admire my
first stack from a new angle, and I find that it looks fairly well from
every side. Of course, it is not perfect, and I would not advise people
who are busy or have something important to do to come far out of their
way to look at it, but still I am not ashamed to have it examined.
In the past I have always had an expert stack-builder to do the
building, but this year the boys and I are doing all the farm work, and
I had to build myself. Of course, I have often helped at stack-building,
keeping the hay in front of the builder or pitching off the loads, but I
never before had the courage to act as chief architect. I have also
heard good stack-builders discuss the art, and I know that the chief
thing is to "keep the middle full." As nearly as possible I made this
stack all middle, kept it well tramped and never went too near the
edges. Experts who have looked at it say that it will turn the wet all
right, but I shall not feel entirely safe until it has been opened next
winter. I have no doubt the cows have a proverb to the effect that "the
proof of the stack is in the eating."
A real farmer with whom I was discussing my stack with more modesty than
I really felt made the disquieting comment: "Your first two or three
stacks will probably be all right, for you will be careful. It is after
you think that you know how to build stacks that you will get careless
and then you will begin to build poor ones." Possibly that is true, but
to be forewarned is to be forearmed. I certainly did give my whole
attention to the work while building that stack. My mind was on it all
the time, and every forkful was placed with considerate care. It
irritated me to have any one distract my attention by speaking to me
while I was at the work. I was bound to make a good job of it.
To those who have never built stacks it would be surprising to know the
amount of concentrated attention that is required. A stack isn't simply
a pile of hay, and when it comes to topping off you need a good eye to
make all sides slope up evenly. I didn't intend to build it so high, but
the slope at which I started kept me going up and up as far as the two
boys could pitch. One was throwing hay up as high as he could from the
load, and the other was perched precariously on a little ledge, from
which he threw it up to me, and when I reached the top I was also
pitching the bundles higher than my head. By that time I had become
sufficiently accustomed to my work to have a chance to observe and to
note that my stack was like
"Some tall cliff vertiginously high."
The boy who was perched on the side of the stack reminded me of the
lines:
"Half way down,
Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade!"
But working with hay, thinking hay, and almost eating hay is not
conducive to a flow of poetical quotations. By the time the stack was
completed and the top weighted down with a piece of wire and a couple of
blocks of unsplittable wood from the woodpile I was tired out in mind
and body. As soon as I could I stumbled away to the tent and slept like
a log until five a.m. on the following morning, when a fly with a
club-foot limped across my nose and wakened me to another day of toil
and building.
Many explanations have been offered of the trend of country people to
the cities, but it is possible that the true source of the difficulty
has been overlooked. Students of the problem have been too practical.
They have discussed the difficulty in terms of dollars and cents and of
hard labour. An idealistic observer with keener insight might lay the
blame on our literature and art. For some generations compulsory
education has been scattering the leaven of learning in the rural
districts, and what are we offering the new army of readers and seekers
for culture? We are offering them history, romance, and poetry in which
war, statecraft, social eminence, artistic, poetic, and professional
ability yield to heroic souls ample harvests of success, fame, and
perhaps content.
Agriculture, the most essential of the world's industries, has not been
touched by the true glamour of literature and art. Poets and writers who
have dealt with it have given us creations in dialect, and artists who
have illustrated this kind of literature have depicted a race of men and
women in jeans and gingham. This is not the kind of thing calculated to
rouse the ambition of country boys and girls. Their heroes are fair
spoken, well dressed, and skilled in courtly manners. They feel that to
develop themselves and to make the most of their lives they must away to
the cities where the things that literature and art glorify may be found
or accomplished.
You cannot expect young men of spirit to take to farming until it has
been idealised. In the present condition of public taste they can only
hope to figure in literature as stupid and sometimes amusing drudges,
and in art as raw-boned monstrosities with whiskers in their ears. They
dream of military uniforms, places on boards of directors, and
well-dressed triumphs of all kinds that are adequately applauded by
beautiful women dressed in the latest fashion. All our literature and
art tends to foster these foolish dreams. It is vain for philosophers to
preach the advantages of the simple life and for editors to preach the
great duty of producing the world's food. Duty, the "stern daughter of
the voice of God," is not popular with the young. They want life and
action and joyousness, because literature and art have taught them that
these are the things most to be desired, and they hurry to the cities to
find them.
The art of living has not penetrated to the country, and you need not
expect it to make progress until we have that new race of poets and
writers and artists which Whitman foresaw, but of which he was not the
protagonist. He sang the glories of work--but did not work much. Thoreau
with all his cantankerousness came nearer to the new literature. His
farming was all done to supply his own needs, and he foresaw the
possibilities of leisure and ease in connection with farm life when he
said: "No man need earn his bread in the sweat of his brow unless he
sweats more easily than I do."
"If the farmers learn to get leisure and use it the old order will
change, and instead of a new heaven and a new earth we shall have a new
earth and a new heaven. The change will begin on the earth. When farmers
learn to work for homes and well-rounded lives, instead of for money, a
new race of artists and writers will spring from the soil and give us
the much-needed literature and art of democracy. They will give a
romantic glamour to country life, and culture, instead of being handed
down from the heights, will be handed up, or rather we shall have to go
back to the soil to get it. Most of the free and equal citizens of the
country are born on the land, and it is probable that in the near future
all the people on the land will be well educated."
When that time comes we shall have a new literature, art, and poetry,
and the world will be given new ideals. Instead of the age of poetry
being past, it is merely beginning to dawn.
_July 25._--"Are you going to the raising?"
If not, you will miss the best entertainment the county affords. A
properly-conducted barn-raising contains the excitement of a fire, the
sociability of a garden party, and the sentimental delights of a summer
resort "hop." The young men are given a chance to show their agility and
prowess and the girls are enabled to shine as hostesses. Although it is
especially a function for young people, there are always enough old
folks on hand to give the occasion historical colour and perspective
with their reminiscences of past raisings--some of them going back to
the days of log barns and houses. In "the heroic period" the best man
was the one who was competent to build a corner, and any one who
examines one of the primitive buildings cannot but marvel at the skilful
dovetailing done by the old-time cornerer. The modern framer, with all
his tools, would find it hard to equal their work. In the traditions of
those days there are stories of men who could run along a log and jump
the opening left for the barn door--about fourteen feet--with a bottle
of whiskey in each hand. Nowadays we have other men and other manners.
The preliminary work of a barn-raising is done in the winter months,
when the timber for the frame is felled and squared. As the old-time
broadaxe men who could hew to the line and turn out a stick of square
timber that looked as if it had been planed have practically vanished
from the earth, the posts, plates, beams, sills, girths, and girders are
now squared at the sawmills. After the timber has been assembled where
the barn is to be built the framers cut it to the required lengths and
make the necessary joints, mortises, tenons, braces, and rafters. The
invitations for the raising are then issued, and the housewife, usually
helped by her friends, begins to cook for a multitude. The best that the
county affords is prepared lavishly, for a raising is always followed by
a great feast.
On the day of the raising a gang of men working under the directions of
the framers put together the bents and sills. The latter are usually
laid on cement foundations, as most modern barns have a basement stable
for horses and cows. The bents, usually four in number, consist of the
posts, beams, girths, and braces. They are put together, with all joints
strongly pinned and laid overlapping one another on the foundation, with
the tenons on the foot of each post ready to be entered into the
mortises in the sills. Early in the afternoon the crowd begins to
gather. When all who are expected have put in an appearance, captains
are selected, who proceed to choose sides. Then is the anxious moment
for the county beau who can feel holes burning in the back of his duck
shirt because of
"A pair
Of blue eyes sot upun it."
To be chosen first or to be among the first half-dozen is an honour you
could appreciate more fully if in your youth you had been chosen second
man. I admit it was only second, but, like the Emperor William in the
patriotic but blasphemous German story, I was young then, and I left the
country before I reached my growth. As each man is chosen, he leaves the
crowd and joins the growing group about his captain. Not even "Casey" of
baseball fame could make that short walk with more "ease and pride" than
some of the county boys, and not a few of them prepare their hands for
the coming fray, as he did when
"Ten thousand eyes admired him
As he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand throats applauded
As he wiped them on his shirt."
When every one has been chosen down to such riffraff as visiting
journalists and politicians, who can only be expected to help with the
grunting when the lifting is being done, the real work of the raising
begins. Although the rivals take opposite sides of the barn, they work
together in putting up the main framework. "Ye-ho! Hee-eeve! All
together now! Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!"
Slowly the first bent is lifted and shored up until the pike-poles can
be brought into play.
"Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!"
Men with handspikes hold back the foot of each post so that the tenons
may not slip past the mortises as the huge beams are being pushed up
into the air.
"Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!"
At last the tenons slip home and the first bent is stay-lathed in place.
The girths that connect with the next bent are put in place, braced, and
stayed. Then another bent is heaved up and the extending girths fitted,
braced, and pinned. So to the last bent. As it swings up the excitement
becomes furious. While the bent is still at a dangerous angle, men
clamber up to the collar beams and begin tugging at ropes attached to
the heavy plates that are being hoisted against the frame. By the time
the last posts have snapped into place the ends of the plates are
already on the collar beams.
"Ye-ho! Hee-eeve! Ye-ho! Hee-eeve! Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!" The race is on!
The slanting plates are rapidly pushed high above the building.
Sometimes they are liberally soaped to make them slip over the beams
more easily. Now comes the spectacular act of the exciting performance.
While the end of the plate is high in the air venturesome young men,
anxious to make a reputation for reckless daring, shin up to the top so
that they may "break" it more quickly. No sooner has it been brought
down to the collar beams than it is pushed along the full length of the
building. Now it must be lifted into place on the tenons at the tops of
the posts.
"Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!"
The cheering suddenly changes to sharp calls and commands.
"Where's that brace?"
"Throw me a commander!"
"Throw me a pin!"
Bang! Bang! Bang! The pins are driven home.
The main plates are pinned into place and the lighter purlines are
already lying on the beams with posts fitted in and braced. Now they
must be hoisted.
"Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!"
"Where's that strut?"
Now for the rafters! They are already leaning against the main plates,
with one end on the ground. Hand over hand they are pulled up, fitted
into their places in the plate and laid across the rising purlines. This
is the breathless end of the race. The purline is up! The rafters in
place!
"All down!"
The winners spill down from the building as if they would break their
necks.
"Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!"
The race is over; the winners rush for the tables that are spread on the
lawn, and the laughter of girls and women takes the place of the hoarse
yelling and cheering of the men. Under a shower of compliments the
winners wash up and range around the tables, where they are waited on by
the girls. The losers, who may have been only a few rafters behind, are
forced to wait for "the second tables." Under the influence of the
feasting the excitement soon dies down and both winners and losers share
in the general good humour.
Sometimes the contending sides indulge in a game of baseball if there is
still time and they feel like exerting themselves after their full meal.
Not infrequently the day ends with a dance--not old-fashioned square
dances, but up-to-date waltzes with music provided by a graduate of some
ladies' college presiding at one of those grand pianos that appear like
mushrooms after a season of good crops. The old fiddler rasping out "The
Irish Washerwoman" has gone "glimmering down the dust of days that
were," with so many other country institutions.
Then comes the drive home through the moonlight, along the country
roads and past the sweet-smelling clover fields. As the young men are
always heroic and the girls bewitching on these occasions, there is no
telling how many romances take definite form at barn-raisings. What have
the cities to offer in comparison with this for excitement, fun, and
sentiment? Nothing--absolutely nothing!
_July 27._--The fat steers are now occupying the centre of the stage.
They are being shipped from this district, not simply in carload lots,
but in trainloads. It is sad to think that they will so soon lose their
colonial identity and begin to masquerade on imperial tables as the
roast beef of Old England. For some months past they have been making a
glorious showing in the pasture fields. A drive along the roads in any
direction would be sure to bring into evidence herds of from twenty to
thirty feeding in dehorned peace or chewing the cud under the shade
trees. They gave an air of prosperity to the landscape fully as
satisfying as the wheatfields of the hustling junior provinces. If old
Ontario is being forced by changed conditions to let her fields run to
pasture, she has fat steers to show for it that equal the best. The old
scrub stock descended from the pioneer cattle that used to get through
the winters by eating buds and licking the moss off the trees has
entirely disappeared. In its place we have cattle that are bred for meat
production, and the farmer who sells a herd of these gets in exchange a
roll of bills that is too big to be hidden in a stump or hollow log.
Nothing but a chartered bank will hold it. Like almost everything else
the farmers have to sell nowadays, fat steers command a high price that
makes one sympathise with the poor city people who must buy. But when
the farmers are prosperous, business booms and the city people get their
share--especially those who are in any way affected by the piano trade.
Fat hogs are also playing an important part in this year's drama of
prosperity--in fact they are getting their feet right into the financial
trough. At the present price--eight cents a pound, live weight--they
have reached a point that is the despair of men whose memory runs back
to the time of the American war and other periods of forced prices. In
this connection it is amusing to note how little some people care for
the cause, so long as they can get good prices. One old Presbyterian
elder, who has long since gone to his reward, made his fortune during
the Crimean war, and ever after he used to exclaim with heartfelt
emphasis on every possible occasion, "I wish there would be another war
with Roosha, so the price of wheat would go up." It didn't matter to him
how many people were killed or what suffering was endured, so long as he
got a fancy price for his wheat. Another worthy of the same period kept
his wheat for three years after the war closed hoping to be able to sell
it at war prices. The state of the market weighed so heavily on his mind
that when he met an acquaintance his invariable form of greeting was:
"Isn't the wheat cheap? How are the wife and children?" But to return to
hogs. They, too, have undergone a transformation. The old-fashioned
swift-footed, long-nosed variety that could reach the third row of
potatoes through a snake fence has disappeared--as has the snake fence.
The hog of the present day really resembles his portrait in the
advertisements in the agricultural papers. He lives a brief life of
full-fed inactivity, has a clean pen, plenty of pure water and wholesome
chopped feed. If offered the old-fashioned ration of swill, he would no
doubt turn up his nose in disgust and ask the farmer to bring him the
bill of fare.
Calves and lambs are also in demand with the buyers--they used to be
called drovers--and bring good prices. But sheep-raising is not so
important a business in this district as it might be. There are a few
sheep--prize-winners at that--in the neighbourhood, but the industry is
not flourishing, and the good old joke about taking the annual bath at
the time of sheep-washing has fallen into disuse. The sheep they have
are excellent to look upon. They even surpass the one described by the
schoolboy as having "four legs on the under side, one at each corner."
Their feet are set far towards the middle, and are so overhung with
fatness that if a sheep gets cast on her side she cannot regain her
footing, but will die unless found and rescued. So many sheep are lost
in this way that farmers who raise them find it necessary to look over
their flocks and count them at least twice a day so as to be sure that
none of them is missing. But though the sheep have changed, the buyers
are still the same as they were in the days of Solomon. Here is a sample
deal reported from life. The buyer has just driven up to the barn from
the road.
"Good-morning, Jim."
"Good-morning, Bob."
"Awful dry weather we have been having lately."
"It is; but it looks a little like rain this morning."
"Yes, but it has been looking like rain every day for the past couple of
weeks, and I have always noticed that when it looks like rain and
doesn't, we usually have a long dry spell."
"That's so."
"I hear you have some fat sheep."
"I have, but I don't think I'll sell them just now. Jack Stout was
looking at them the other day, but he didn't offer enough for them."
"What did he offer?"
"Three cents a pound."
"Well, that's all they're bringing now."
"Yes. Well, I think I'll keep mine for a while longer. I have nothing
else on the pasture since I sold my steers, and I don't think they'll
get any cheaper."
"Funny that sheep aren't higher when pork is so dear. I am paying eight
cents a pound for hogs just now."
Here followed a conversation on hogs that need not be reported, as it
was not to the point. Finally the buyer volunteered:
"I'm making up a carload to-day and I'm a little short. If your sheep
are good and fat I don't mind paying three and a quarter for them."
"That isn't much better than Jack's bid. No, I don't think I'll sell
them just now."
"Well, I must be going. Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
The farmer stands and watches the buyer as he drives down a lane. When
he has gone a few rods he stops and looks back.
"Oh, Jim!"
"Well!"
"I've just been thinking it over, and, though sheep are not worth a cent
over three cents a pound, I am in such a fix to-day getting my car
filled that I'll pay three and a half."
"When will you want them delivered?"
"At noon to-day."
"All right." The deal is closed and both are satisfied. What an
up-to-date comment this makes on Solomon's text: "The buyer saith 'It is
naught. It is naught,' but when he goeth his way he boasteth."
Now comes the task of rounding up the sheep, loading them on a waggon,
and taking them to a railway station. If the man who first compared
voters to a flock of sheep didn't know any more about politics than he
did about sheep he should have been waited on by a delegation of farmers
and told a few things. Of all the stubborn, contrary, ornery critters to
drive, coax, or lead, sheep certainly deserve the mahogany sideboard, or
trip to Europe, or whatever it is they offer in popular prize
competitions. They follow their leaders, of course, but any fool that
starts running in any direction is instantly followed as a leader. And
the leaders never seem to have a clear idea of where they want to go.
Their one idea seems to be to bolt the convention, and that is a
characteristic of reformers rather than of ordinary voters. If the
people were at all like sheep the politicians could do nothing with
them. The simile is no good. And will some psychologist kindly explain
why a man's memory will turn sarcastic on him--when he has almost run
his legs off and can feel his lungs red all the way down--and throw up a
quotation like this:
"Falstaff: He fled from me like quicksilver.
Doll: Ay, and thou followest him like a church;"
or words to that effect. If my motions resembled those of a church, the
church must have been hit by a cyclone when its actions were observed.
However, the task was finally accomplished and the sheep joined the fat
steers, hogs, calves, and lambs in their progress towards the kitchen.
Some farmers in this district have threshed their wheat without putting
it in barns or stacks--carrying it from the shocks to the
threshing-machines. The grain was then rushed to market, so that
advantage might be taken of the high prices. The highest yield reported
was of thirty-one bushels to the acre--a return that is highly
satisfactory at present prices. All spring crops will be light on
account of the late sowing and the continued dry weather. One field of
oats was seen that has already turned yellow, as if ripening, without
having headed out. But so many things are making for prosperity on the
farms this year that few people have any real cause to grumble.
_July 29._--The country has been described from a car window, an
automobile, a buggy, a bicycle, and even afoot, so why not from a
hammock? It is favourably located with a view of the best the country
has to offer. One end is suspended from a little oak that has grown
within the memory of man from an acorn dropped by a red squirrel or a
predatory small boy. The other end is attached to a crab-apple tree that
"casts a generous shade." A gentle breeze is whispering in a near-by
clump of oaks and elms--an untouched bit of the original forest. The
bees are humming like a city, and the hens are cackling over recent
contributions to the world's food supply. A reaper is clacking faintly
in the distance, and somehow the hour of ease seems sweeter because of
the knowledge that some one is working. A panorama of green corn, oat,
and barley fields, brown hay stubble, and yellow wheat in the shock can
be seen by merely turning one's head. And around all is a wall of woods
still as fresh as in the spring. What more could be asked by any one
enamoured of the simple life?
The haying came and went this year as quickly as the express train that
needed two men to see it--one to say, "Here she comes," and another to
say, "There she goes." One morning the mower started, in the afternoon
the rake was busy, and by the end of the next day the hay was all in the
mows and lofts. As it was all cut, raked, loaded, and unloaded by
machinery, the old back-breaking work of pitching was not in evidence.
Still, the work was hard enough, and those who kept at it from early
morning till late at night were thankful to have some one else volunteer
to do the chores. The haying weather was ideal, plenty of sunshine and a
good breeze to cure the hay; but for the first time on record the
haymakers were wishing for rain. This section is suffering from a
peculiar dry spell that is damaging the spring crops. For some weeks
past there have been almost daily indications of rain, but none has
come. Storms gather in the west almost daily and then drift away to the
south or north. The papers bring reports of heavy rains at every point
of the compass, but a strip about thirty miles wide through this part of
the province has not been blessed with a decent sprinkle. In some places
the corn is wilting through lack of moisture, and all spring crops will
be light unless there is a heavy downpour within the next few days. It
looks like rain to-day, but the performance of previous days will
probably be repeated. Will the weather man kindly explain why other
sections are favoured while this one is left desolate? Can it be
possible that there is a Jonah living in this neighbourhood? But perhaps
it will be as well not to investigate that point.
The wheat harvest is now on and progressing at the same rate as did the
haying. The self-binders are doing the heavy work, but there is no
machine for loading or unloading the sheaves. They must be handled with
a fork and to put in a full day at that is to know what hard work means.
The sheaves are of uniform size, however, and that is an advantage. In
the days of the self-rake machines that did not measure the sheaves
automatically, but had to be "tripped" by the driver, they varied from a
few wisps to huge bundles that would break the fork handles. This
inequality made pitching a worse job than it is to-day. By doing the
binding, the modern reaper has relieved harvesting of its heaviest work.
It used to take four men to keep up with an old self-rake machine and
many a good man was "bushed"--that is, driven to the bush to cool off
and rest--by the killing pace. Before the day of the self-rake machine
the grain was harvested with the cradle, and cradling was work for a
giant. A farmer whose memory goes back to the days of cradling tells a
story on himself that is worth repeating because of the light it casts
on the women who helped to build up Canada. In his day he was a master
with the old turkey-wing cradle, and it was his boast that few binders
could keep up with him when he went swinging down a field. When his own
wheat was harvested it was his custom to "hire out" to do cradling for
the neighbours. On one occasion he hired out with a farmer whose
daughters,
"Huge women, stronger than men,
Blowzed with wind and rain and labour,"
used to help with the harvest. When he went to the field in the morning
he was accompanied by one of these Amazons, who proposed to bind after
him. He started down the field at an easy swing and when he reached the
end of the swath and prepared to whet the scythe of his cradle he
glanced around to see how his partner was progressing. To his surprise
he found that she had just tossed aside the last sheaf. With the handle
of the rake resting on her shoulder, she was mopping her face with a
corner of her apron. As she caught his eye she remarked cordially:
"It's a het day, Mr. Jamieson."
On the next round he bent to his work with all his energy, but when he
reached the end of the swath and glanced around his triumphant partner
remarked:
"It's a het day, Mr. Jamieson."
All day long he plunged ahead, but she kept at his heels, and when the
last swath was cut and the last sheaf bound she threw the rake over her
shoulder and remarked:
"It has been a het day, Mr Jamieson."
It is generally believed that later on he proposed to the Amazon and
that the answer she gave made it "a cauld day" for Mr. Jamieson.
With the spirit of harvest home in the air it is a source of real joy to
one who reclines in a hammock and meditates on what other people do that
the last word on these happy festivals has been written by a Canadian.
All the poets have had a try at it and some of them did fairly well, but
it remained for McIntyre of Ingersoll, The Cheese Poet, to reach the
fundamental truth. With the plain practical common sense for which he
was noted, he penetrated through all the shams and make-believes that
always surround periods of thanksgiving and let the truth gush forth in
limpid verse. His poem on "Big Crops" closes with a couplet that should
be better known, for it is undoubtedly destined to immortality. Hearken
to McIntyre:
"Forty bushels to the acre
Makes us grateful to our Maker."
There you have it. Can you add anything or take anything away! To
approve its truth you have but to notice the thin, sour smile of the man
whose crops yielded but ten bushels to the acre when he takes up the
Thanksgiving hymn. Then behold the irradiating happiness of him whose
bins are bursting with a forty-bushel crop. Note how he bellows forth
the strains and makes a joyful noise. Unquestionably the laurels belong
to McIntyre. He has summed up the harvest-home spirit once for all.
To the hammock comes the odour of raspberry jam in the making. Owing to
the dry weather the raspberries were not plentiful this year, but they
are well-flavoured. The same report applies to currants, gooseberries,
and all other small fruits. The prospect for apples is excellent. The
trees are heavily loaded, and where they have been properly sprayed
there will be a good yield. It seems incredible, and yet it is true,
that in different parts of Ontario thousands of bushels of the best
apples are allowed to rot every year because the farmers cannot get
enough to pay for the labour of picking and marketing the fruit. Yet
good apples are dear in the cities. Just where the trouble lies is not
quite clear.
Of all the delights enjoyed by the occupant of the hammock, watching the
sunsets is chief. This summer they have been unusually fine, owing to
the storms that threatened and turned aside. Each evening has given a
picture of marvellous splendour, ranging from light streaks of silvery
cloud over blue skies of illimitable depth to masses of rose and gold.
Sometimes the colours are confined to one glowing spot. At others they
spread over the whole sky, varying in their shadings at each shifting of
the clouds. To this splendour of the skies must be added the silvery
grey of the oat and barley fields, and the cool green of the woods, shot
with streaks of golden sunlight. Mountainous countries may show more
stupendous effects, but the sunsets of the level reaches of central
Ontario have a beauty that it would be hard to rival. And after the
sunset the stars come out, and hours of waking dreams precede the hours
of dreamless sleep that only the quiet country can give. It is all very
good.
_July 30._--There are no doubt many hot jobs on the farms during the
summer months, but up to the present writing I have struck nothing
hotter than cultivating corn in the still, humid hours of the early
afternoon when a thunderstorm is gathering. As the green-headed flies
are always at their worst just before a storm, they get the horse
frantic, and her attempts to dislodge her tormentors with her hind feet
are so disastrous to the growing hills of corn that a man's temperature
goes up steadily until he makes a sweating, panting, howling exhibition
of himself. These flies are said to be especially bad this summer, and
one "grave and reverent seignior" told me that the ones that attacked
his horses not only bit them, but took out chunks of flesh and flew away
to the woods with them, where they could eat them at their leisure. But
I have my doubts of that. I am beginning to suspect that real farmers
take a delight in telling me whoppers, and otherwise imposing on my
credulity. For instance, a man was telling me what a hearty feeder one
of his horses is.
"Why," he said, "when she is pasturing, and makes up her mind that she
wants to have a roll, she never stops eating. She lies down, still
eating away, and rolls over and over, without ever missing a bite." Now,
I leave it to the editor if that man wasn't stretching it a little bit.
But to get back to hot jobs. I thought that my job of cultivating in the
blazing sun was hot enough for any one, but I am told that a man who has
never mowed away hay under a steel roof has no idea of what heat is.
According to the accounts I have heard, it must be a trifle worse than
mining borax in Death Valley, and that is said to be the hottest job
that any human being ever undertook. But the corn job is hot enough for
me.
Yesterday afternoon I was nearer to being "bushed" than I have been
since undertaking to work a farm. I was pitching hay in the field--I am
told it was native blue grass, and unusually heavy--and the coils were
compact, and looked to have only about one forkful in each one. We were
working at the gait of men who want to get a stack finished before a
shower, and I thought I was good for anything that came along. But
before evening I hadn't a word to say to any one. They could "josh" me
all they wanted to, but I hadn't the energy to answer back. Every coil
was bigger and heavier than the last, and the day kept getting hotter
and the wind died down, and the weather got more threatening, until it
seemed as if human nature couldn't stand more, but the rest of the gang
didn't find out how tuckered I was. I managed to stick it out, but I am
not anxious to repeat the experience. If a large plantigrade man had
come along hunting for work while the trouble was in progress, he could
have had any price he asked, but hired men are too scarce to be
foot-loose at this time of the year. Oh, yes, I know I should be
up-to-date and have a hay loader and hay fork, but any implement agent
who reads this will be wasting his time if he comes and tries to sell
them to me. I have noticed that a lot of farmers who are farming on
about the same scale as I am keep themselves poor buying the latest
improvements, and I am not ambitious to join their melancholy ranks.
Improved implements are an excellent thing to have if one has enough
work for them to do, but there are cases where the sensible thing is to
be old-fashioned. Muscle is still cheaper than machinery for small jobs.
This experience started me meditating on hired men I have known. Where
now can we find the equals of those wonderful workers who were known in
"the short and simple annals of the poor" as "Bill the Cow" and
"Three-fingered Jack, the Human Hayfork"? Bill used to laugh aloud at
ordinary haycocks. What he wanted was young stacks, and he would heave
them up whole, and was insulted if offered anything smaller than a
barley fork to work with. And when hay forks were first introduced, did
not Three-fingered Jack get all lit up at the fall fair and start on a
rampage to find the agent who had sold the toys. He reeled up and down
the one street of the village and "bellered like all Bashan," and
breathed slaughter, and would not be comforted when he could not find
the man who was spoiling the good old pastime of haymaking by
introducing horse forks. Those men used to work from dawn until after
dark on the longest days, and they hated a mid-day shower as badly as
the men who hired them. But where are they now? For answer, let us cull
a fitting threnody from Homer, mighty singer of heroes:
"They long since in earth's soft arms are reposing,
Afar from their own dear land, their native land--Lacedemon."
Instead of Lacedemon, read Scotland, or England, or Ireland. They died,
and their methods of working died with them. If they could only come
back, we would organise excursions and charge an admission fee to those
who wished to see them at work. But we are living in another and no
doubt a better age. Men do not work as they did, and could not if they
wanted to. Compared with them, we are a degenerate race, even though we
wear finely-laundered linen when we go to town, instead of donning paper
collars and putting butter on our hair.
Of course, time is very valuable, and we are assured by all kinds of
wise people that "Time is Money." Even _The Farmer's Advocate_ has
published articles telling what to do on rainy afternoons, so that no
time may be lost. All this is no doubt very excellent, and far be it
from me to say anything that might justify lazy people in wasting time,
but I am still of the opinion that no man should work during the first
few minutes after a summer shower. When everything in nature has been
refreshed, he should try to breathe in a little of the refreshment
himself. The air is so pure, and everything in the fields and woods so
beautiful that it is positively invigorating to share in the joy by
which we are surrounded at such times. Even the birds, though their
broods may be hungry, stop for a chorus of song among the dripping
leaves. Before the storm comes up all nature is parched and wilting, but
after it has passed everything is throbbing with life. The corn and oats
are a fresher green, and sparkle with countless jewels. It is at such
times that life in the country is at its best, if we will only forget
our cares and worries to enjoy it, even though only for a minute. The
beauty of the world needs to be harvested and stored away in the memory
just as carefully as the crops that are now causing us so much concern.
The memory of what is beautiful should be as precious to us as full
granaries.