The Homestead on the Knoll
Spring came to us that year with such sudden beauty, such sweet
significance after our long and depressing winter, that it seemed a
release from prison, and when at the close of a warm day in March we
heard, pulsing down through the golden haze of sunset, the mellow _boom,
boom, boom_ of the prairie cock our hearts quickened, for this, we were
told, was the certain sign of spring.
Day by day the call of this gay herald of spring was taken up by others
until at last the whole horizon was ringing with a sunrise symphony of
exultant song. "_Boom, boom, boom!_" called the roosters; "_cutta,
cutta, wha-whoop-squaw, squawk!_" answered the hens as they fluttered
and danced on the ridges--and mingled with their jocund hymn we heard at
last the slender, wistful piping of the prairie lark.
With the coming of spring my duties as a teamster returned. My father
put me in charge of a harrow, and with old Doll and Queen--quiet and
faithful span--I drove upon the field which I had plowed the previous
October, there to plod to and fro behind my drag, while in the sky above
my head and around me on the mellowing soil the life of the season,
thickened.
Aided by my team I was able to study at close range the prairie roosters
as they assembled for their parade. They had regular "stamping grounds"
on certain ridges, Where the soil was beaten smooth by the pressure of
their restless feet. I often passed within a few yards of them.--I can
see them now, the cocks leaping and strutting, with trailing wings and
down-thrust heads, displaying their bulbous orange-colored neck
ornaments while the hens flutter and squawk in silly delight. All the
charm and mystery of that prairie world comes back to me, and I ache
with an illogical desire to recover it and hold it, and preserve it in
some form for my children.--It seems an injustice that they should miss
it, and yet it is probable that they are getting an equal joy of life,
an equal exaltation from the opening flowers of the single lilac bush in
our city back-yard or from an occasional visit to the lake in Central
Park.
Dragging is even more wearisome than plowing, in some respects, for you
have no handles to assist you and your heels sinking deep into the soft
loam bring such unwonted strain upon the tendons of your legs that you
can scarcely limp home to supper, and it seems that you cannot possibly
go on another day,--but you do--at least I did.
There was something relentless as the weather in the way my soldier
father ruled his sons, and yet he was neither hard-hearted nor
unsympathetic. The fact is easily explained. His own boyhood had been
task-filled and he saw nothing unnatural in the regular employment of
his children. Having had little play-time himself, he considered that we
were having a very comfortable boyhood. Furthermore the country was new
and labor scarce. Every hand and foot must count under such conditions.
There are certain ameliorations to child-labor on a farm. Air and
sunshine and food are plentiful. I never lacked for meat or clothing,
and mingled with my records of toil are exquisite memories of the joy I
took in following the changes in the landscape, in the notes of birds,
and in the play of small animals on the sunny soil.
There were no pigeons on the prairie but enormous flocks of ducks came
sweeping northward, alighting at sunset to feed in the fields of
stubble. They came in countless myriads and often when they settled to
earth they covered acres of meadow like some prodigious cataract from
the sky. When alarmed they rose with a sound like the rumbling of
thunder.
At times the lines of their cloud-like flocks were so unending that
those in the front rank were lost in the northern sky, while those in
the rear were but dim bands beneath the southern sun.--I tried many
times to shoot some of them, but never succeeded, so wary were they.
Brant and geese in formal flocks followed and to watch these noble birds
pushing their arrowy lines straight into the north always gave me
special joy. On fine days they flew high--so high they were but faint
lines against the shining clouds.
I learned to imitate their cries, and often caused the leaders to turn,
to waver in their course as I uttered my resounding call.
The sand-hill crane came last of all, loitering north in lonely easeful
flight. Often of a warm day, I heard his sovereign cry falling from the
azure dome, so high, so far his form could not be seen, so close to the
sun that my eyes could not detect his solitary, majestic circling sweep.
He came after the geese. He was the herald of summer. His brazen,
reverberating call will forever remain associated in my mind with
mellow, pulsating earth, springing grass and cloudless glorious May-time
skies.
As my team moved to and fro over the field, ground sparrows rose in
countless thousands, flinging themselves against the sky like grains of
wheat from out a sower's hand, and their chatter fell upon me like the
voices of fairy sprites, invisible and multitudinous. Long swift narrow
flocks of a bird we called "the prairie-pigeon" swooped over the swells
on sounding wing, winding so close to the ground, they seemed at times
like slender air-borne serpents,--and always the brown lark whistled as
if to cheer my lonely task.
Back and forth across the wide field I drove, while the sun crawled
slowly up the sky. It was tedious work and I was always hungry by nine,
and famished at ten. Thereafter the sun appeared to stand still. My
chest caved in and my knees trembled with weakness, but when at last the
white flag fluttering from a chamber window summoned to the mid-day
meal, I started with strength miraculously renewed and called,
"_Dinner!_" to the hired hand. Unhitching my team, with eager haste I
climbed upon old Queen, and rode at ease toward the barn.
Oh, it was good to enter the kitchen, odorous with fresh biscuit and hot
coffee! We all ate like dragons, devouring potatoes and salt pork
without end, till mother mildly remarked, "Boys, boys! Don't 'founder'
yourselves!"
From such a meal I withdrew torpid as a gorged snake, but luckily I had
half an hour in which to get my courage back,--and besides, there was
always the stirring power of father's clarion call. His energy appeared
superhuman to me. I was in awe of him. He kept track of everything,
seemed hardly to sleep and never complained of weariness. Long before
the nooning was up, (or so it seemed to me) he began to shout: "Time's
up, boys. Grab a root!"
And so, lame, stiff and sore, with the sinews of my legs shortened, so
that my knees were bent like an old man's, I hobbled away to the barn
and took charge of my team. Once in the field, I felt better. A subtle
change, a mellower charm came over the afternoon earth. The ground was
warmer, the sky more genial, the wind more amiable, and before I had
finished my second "round" my joints were moderately pliable and my
sinews relaxed.
Nevertheless the temptation to sit on the corner of the harrow and dream
the moments away was very great, and sometimes as I laid my tired body
down on the tawny, sunlit grass at the edge of the field, and gazed up
at the beautiful clouds sailing by, I wished for leisure to explore
their purple valleys.--The wind whispered in the tall weeds, and sighed
in the hazel bushes. The dried blades touching one another in the
passing winds, spoke to me, and the gophers, glad of escape from their
dark, underground prisons, chirped a cheery greeting. Such respites were
strangely sweet.
So day by day, as I walked my monotonous round upon the ever mellowing
soil, the prairie spring unrolled its beauties before me. I saw the last
goose pass on to the north, and watched the green grass creeping up the
sunny slopes. I answered the splendid challenge of the loitering crane,
and studied the ground sparrow building her grassy nest. The prairie
hens began to seek seclusion in the swales, and the pocket gopher,
busily mining the sod, threw up his purple-brown mounds of cool fresh
earth. Larks, blue-birds and king-birds followed the robins, and at last
the full tide of May covered the world with luscious green.
Harriet and Frank returned to school but I was too valuable to be
spared. The unbroken land of our new farm demanded the plow and no
sooner was the planting on our rented place finished than my father
began the work of fencing and breaking the sod of the homestead which
lay a mile to the south, glowing like a garden under the summer sun. One
day late in May my uncle David (who had taken a farm not far away),
drove over with four horses hitched to a big breaking plow and together
with my father set to work overturning the primeval sward whereon we
were to be "lords of the soil."
I confess that as I saw the tender plants and shining flowers bow
beneath the remorseless beam, civilization seemed a sad business, and
yet there was something epic, something large-gestured and splendid in
the "breaking" season. Smooth, glossy, almost unwrinkled the thick
ribbon of jet-black sod rose upon the share and rolled away from the
mold-board's glistening curve to tuck itself upside down into the furrow
behind the horse's heels, and the picture which my uncle made, gave me
pleasure in spite of the sad changes he was making.
The land was not all clear prairie and every ounce of David's great
strength was required to guide that eighteen-inch plow as it went
ripping and snarling through the matted roots of the hazel thickets, and
sometimes my father came and sat on the beam in order to hold the
coulter to its work, while the giant driver braced himself to the shock
and the four horses strained desperately at their traces. These contests
had the quality of a wrestling match but the men always won. My own job
was to rake and burn the brush which my father mowed with a heavy
scythe.--Later we dug postholes and built fences but each day was spent
on the new land.
Around us, on the swells, gray gophers whistled, and the nesting plover
quaveringly called. Blackbirds clucked in the furrow and squat badgers
watched with jealous eye the plow's inexorable progress toward their
dens. The weather was perfect June. Fleecy clouds sailed like snowy
galleons from west to east, the wind was strong but kind, and we worked
in a glow of satisfied ownership.
Many rattlesnakes ("massasaugas" Mr. Button called them), inhabited the
moist spots and father and I killed several as we cleared the ground.
Prairie wolves lurked in the groves and swales, but as foot by foot and
rod by rod, the steady steel rolled the grass and the hazel brush under,
all of these wild things died or hurried away, never to return. Some
part of this tragedy I was able even then to understand and regret.
At last the wide "quarter section" lay upturned, black to the sun and
the garden that had bloomed and fruited for millions of years, waiting
for man, lay torn and ravaged. The tender plants, the sweet flowers, the
fragrant fruits, the busy insects, all the swarming lives which had been
native here for untold centuries were utterly destroyed. It was sad and
yet it was not all loss, even to my thinking, for I realized that over
this desolation the green wheat would wave and the corn silks shed their
pollen. It was not precisely the romantic valley of our song, but it was
a rich and promiseful plot and my father seemed entirely content.
Meanwhile, on a little rise of ground near the road, neighbor Gammons
and John Bowers were building our next home. It did not in the least
resemble the foundation of an everlasting family seat, but it deeply
excited us all. It was of pine and had the usual three rooms below and a
long garret above and as it stood on a plain, bare to the winds, my
father took the precaution of lining it with brick to hold it down. It
was as good as most of the dwellings round about us but it stood naked
on the sod, devoid of grace as a dry goods box. Its walls were rough
plaster, its floor of white pine, its furniture poor, scanty and worn.
There was a little picture on the face of the clock, a chromo on the
wall, and a printed portrait of General Grant--nothing more. It was
home by reason of my mother's brave and cheery presence, and the prattle
of Jessie's clear voice filled it with music. Dear child,--with her it
was always spring!