_O, I have walked in Kansas
Through many a harvest field
And piled the sheaves of glory there
And down the wild rows reeled:_
_Each sheaf a little yellow sun,
A heap of hot-rayed gold;
Each binder like Creation's hand
To mould suns, as of old._
_Straight overhead the orb of noon
Beat down with brimstone breath:
The desert wind from south and west
Was blistering flame and death._
_Yet it was gay in Kansas,
A-fighting that strong sun;
And I and many a fellow-tramp
Defied that wind and won._
_And we felt free in Kansas
From any sort of fear,
For thirty thousand tramps like us
There harvest every year._
_She stretches arms for them to come,
She roars for helpers then,
And so it is in Kansas
That tramps, one month, are men._
_We sang in burning Kansas
The songs of Sabbath-school,
The "Day Star" flashing in the East,
The "Vale of Eden" cool._
_We sang in splendid Kansas
"The flag that set us free"--
That march of fifty thousand men
With Sherman to the sea._
_We feasted high in Kansas
And had much milk and meat.
The tables groaned to give us power
Wherewith to save the wheat._
_Our beds were sweet alfalfa hay
Within the barn-loft wide.
The loft doors opened out upon
The endless wheat-field tide._
_I loved to watch the wind-mills spin
And watch that big moon rise.
I dreamed and dreamed with lids half-shut,
The moonlight in my eyes._
_For all men dream in Kansas
By noonday and by night,
By sunrise yellow, red and wild
And moonrise wild and white._
_The wind would drive the glittering clouds,
The cottonwoods would croon,
And past the sheaves and through the leaves
Came whispers from the moon._
V
_In Kansas: the Second and Third Harvest_
Two miles north of Great Bend. In the heart of the greatest wheat
country in America, and in the midst of the harvest-time, Sunday, July
7, 1912.
I am meditating on the ways of Destiny. It seems to me I am here, not
altogether by chance. But just why I am here, time must reveal.
Last Friday I had walked the ten miles from Ellinwood to Great Bend by
9 A.M. I went straight to the general delivery, where a package of
tracts and two or three weeks' mail awaited me. I read about half
through the letter-pile as I sat on a rickety bench in the public
square. Some very loud-mouthed negroes were playing horse-shoe
obstreperously. I began to wish Flynn had whipped Johnson. I was
thinking of getting away from there, when two white men, evidently
harvesters, sat down near me and diluted the color scheme.
One man said: "Harvest-wages this week are from two dollars and fifty
cents up to four dollars. We are experienced men and worth three
dollars and fifty cents." Then a German farmer came and negotiated
with them in vain. He wanted to hold them down to three dollars
apiece. He had his automobile to take his crew away that morning.
Then a fellow in citified clothes came to me and asked: "Can you
follow a reaper and shock?" I said: "_Show me the wheat._" So far as I
remember, it is the first time in my life anyone ever hunted me out
and _asked_ me to work for him. He put me into his buggy and drove me
about two miles north to this place, just the region John Humphrey
told me to find, though he did not specify this farm. I was offered
$2.50 and keep, as the prophet foretold. The man who drove me out has
put his place this year into the hands of a tenant who is my direct
boss. I may not be able to last out, but all is well so far. I have
made an acceptable hand, keeping up with the reaper by myself, and I
feel something especial awaits me. But the reaper breaks down so often
I do not know whether I can keep up with it without help when it
begins going full-speed.
These people do not attend church like the Mennonites. The tenant
wanted me to break the Sabbath and help him in the alfalfa to-day. He
suggested that neither he nor I was so narrow-minded or superstitious
as to be a "Sunday man." Besides he couldn't work the alfalfa at all
without one more hand. I did not tell him so, but I felt I needed all
Sunday to catch up on my tiredness. I suspect that my refusal to
violate the Sabbath vexed him.
There has been a terrible row of some kind going on behind the barn
all afternoon. Maybe he is working off his vexation. At last the
tenant's wife has gone out to "see about that racket." Now she comes
in. She tells me they have been trying to break a horse.
The same farm, two miles north of Great Bend, July 8, 1912.
How many times in the counties further back I have asked with fear and
misgiving for permission to work in the alfalfa, and have been
repulsed when I confessed to the lack of experience! And now this
morning I have pitched alfalfa hay with the best of them. We had to go
to work early while the dew softened the leaves. It is a kind of
clover. Once perfectly dry, the leaves crumble off when the hay is
shaken. Then we must quit. The leaves are the nourishing part.
The owner of the place, the citified party who drove me out here the
other day and who is generally back in town, was on top of that stack
this morning, his collar off, his town shirt and pants somewhat the
worse for the exertion. He puffed like a porpoise, for he was putting
in place all the hay we men handed up to him. We lifted the alfalfa in
a long bundle, using our three forks at one time. We worked like
drilled soldiers, then went in to early dinner.
This is a short note written while the binder takes the necessary
three turns round the new wheatfield that the tenant's brother and I
are starting to conquer this afternoon. Three swaths of four bundles
each must be cut, then I will start on my rounds, piling them into
shocks of twelve bundles each.
I am right by the R. F. D. box that goes with this farm. I will put up
the little tin flag that signals the postman. One of the four beasts
hitched to the reaper is a broncho colt who came dancing to the field
this afternoon, refusing to keep his head in line with the rest of the
steeds, and, as a consequence, pulling the whole reaper. It transpires
that the row in the horselot Sunday was caused by this colt. He
jumped up and left his hoof-print on the chest of the man now driving
him. So the two men tied him up and beat him all afternoon with a
double-tree, cursing him between whacks, lashing themselves with
Kansas whisky to keep up steam. Yet he comes dancing to the field.
On the farm two miles north of Great Bend, Wednesday evening, July 10,
1912.
I must write you a short note to-night while the rest are getting
ready for supper. I will try to mail it to-morrow morning on the way
to the wheat. Let me assure you that your letter will be heeded. I
know pretty well, by this time, what I can stand, but if I feel the
least bit unfit I will not go into the sun. That is my understanding
with the tenant who runs the farm. I can eat and sweat like a
Mennonite. I sleep like a top and wake up fresh as a little daisy. So
far I have gone dancing to the field as the broncho did. But the
broncho is a poor illustration. He is dead.
The broncho was the property of a little boy, the son of the man who
owns the farm. The little boy had started with a lamb and raised it,
then sold it for chickens, increasing his capital by trading and
feeding till it was all concentrated to buy this colt. Then he and his
people moved to town and left the colt, just at the breaking age, to
be trained for a boy's pet by these men. Since he became obstreperous,
they thought hitching him to the reaper would cure him, leaving a
draught-horse in the barn to make place for the unruly one.
The tenant's brother, who drove the reaper, sent word to the little
boy he had not the least idea what ailed Dick. He hinted to me later
that whatever killed him must have come from some disease in his head.
Yes, it came from his head. That double-tree and that pitchfork handle
probably missed his ribs once or twice and hit him somewhere around
his eyes, in the course of the Sabbath afternoon services. Two
whisky-lashed colt-breakers can do wonders without trying. I have been
assured that this is the only way to subdue the beasts, that law and
order must assert themselves or the whole barnyard will lead an
industrial rebellion. It is past supper now. I have been writing till
the lamp is dim. I must go to my quilts in the hay.
To-day was the only time the reaper did not break down every half hour
for repairs. So it was one continuous dance for me and my friend the
broncho till about three o'clock in the afternoon, when the sun really
did its best. Then the broncho went crazy. He shoved his head over the
backs of two mules twice his size, and almost pushed them into the
teeth of the sickle.
He was bleeding at the mouth and his eyes almost popped out of his
head. He had hardly an inch of hide that was whole, and his raw places
were completely covered with Kansas flies. And the hot winds have
made the flies so ravenous they draw blood from the back of the
harvester's hand the moment they alight.
The broncho began to kick in all four directions at once. He did one
good thing. He pulled the callouses off the hands of the tenant's
brother, the driver, who still gripped the lines but surrendered his
pride and yelled for me to help. I am as afraid of bronchos and mules
as I am of buzz saws. Yet we separated the beasts somehow, the mules
safely hitched to the fence, the broncho between us, held by two
halter-ropes.
There was no reasoning with Dick. He was dying, and dying game. One of
the small boys appeared just then and carried the alarm. Soon a more
savage and indomitable man with a more eloquent tongue, the tenant
himself, had my end of the rope. But not the most formidable cursing
could stop Dick from bleeding at the mouth. Later the draught horse
whose place he had taken was brought over from his pleasant rest in
the barn and the two were tied head to head. The lordly tenant started
to lead them toward home. But Dick fell down and died as soon as he
reached a patch of unploughed prairie grass, which, I think, was the
proper end for him. The peaceful draught horse was put in his place.
The reaper went back to work. The reaper cut splendidly the rest of
this afternoon. As for me I never shocked wheat with such machine-like
precision. I went at a dog-trot part of the time, and almost caught up
with the machine.
The broncho should not have been called Dick. He should have been
called Daniel Boone, or Davy Crockett or Custer or Richard, yes,
Richard the Lion-Hearted. He came dancing to the field this morning,
between the enormous overshadowing mules, and dancing feebly this
noon. He pulled the whole reaper till three o'clock. I remember I
asked the driver at noon what made the broncho dance. He answered:
"The flies on his ribs, I suppose."
I fancy Dick danced because he was made to die dancing, just as the
Spartans rejoiced and combed their long hair preparing to face certain
death at Thermopylæ.