DRAWING THE FIRST FURROW.
The good-natured Younkins was on hand bright and early the next
morning, to show the new settlers where to cut the first furrow on the
land which they had determined to plough. Having decided to take the
northwest corner of the quarter-section selected, it was easy to find
the stake set at the corner. Then, having drawn an imaginary line from
the stake to that which was set in the southwest corner, the tall
Charlie standing where he could he used as a sign for said landmark,
his father and his uncle, assisted by Younkins, and followed by the
two other boys, set the big breaking-plough as near that line as
possible. The four yoke of oxen stood obediently in line. Mr. Howell
firmly held the plough-handles; Younkins drove the two forward yoke of
cattle, and Mr. Bryant the second two; and the two younger boys stood
ready to hurrah as soon as the word was given to start. It was an
impressive moment to the youngsters.
"Gee up!" shouted Younkins, as mildly as if the oxen were petted
children. The long train moved; the sharp nose of the plough cut into
the virgin turf, turning over a broad sod, about five inches thick;
and then the plough swept onward toward the point where Charlie stood
waving his red handkerchief in the air. Sandy seized a huge piece of
the freshly-turned sod, and swinging it over his head with his strong
young arms, he cried, "Three cheers for the first sod of Bleeding
Kansas! 'Rah! 'Rah! 'Rah!" The farming of the boy settlers had begun.
Charlie, at his distant post on the other side of the creek, saw the
beginning of things, and sent back an answering cheer to the two
boys who were dancing around the massive and slow-moving team of
cattle. The men smiled at the enthusiasm of the youngsters, but in
their hearts the two new settlers felt that this was, after all, an
event of much significance. The green turf now being turned over was
disturbed by ploughshare for the first time since the creation of
the world. Scarcely ever had this soil felt the pressure of the foot
of a white man. For ages unnumbered it had been the feeding-ground
of the buffalo and the deer. The American savage had chased his game
over it, and possibly the sod had been wet with the blood of
contending tribes. Now all was to be changed. As the black, loamy
soil was turned for the first time to the light of day, so for the
first time the long-neglected plain was being made useful for the
support of civilized man.
No wonder the boys cheered and cheered again.
[Illustration: SANDY SEIZED A HUGE PIECE OF THE FRESHLY-TURNED SOD, AND
WAVING IT OVER HIS HEAD CRIED, "THREE CHEERS FOR THE FIRST SOD OF
BLEEDING KANSAS!"]
"We go to plant her common schools,
On distant prairie swells,
And give the Sabbaths of the wild
The music of her bells."
This is what was in Mr. Charles Bryant's mind as he wielded the
ox-goad over the backs of the animals that drew the great plough along
the first furrow cut on the farm of the emigrants. The day was bright
and fair; the sun shone down on the flower-gemmed sod; no sound broke
on the still air but the slow treading of the oxen, the chirrup of the
drivers, the ripping of the sod as it was turned in the furrow, and
the gay shouts of the light-hearted boys.
In a line of marvellous straightness, Younkins guided the leading yoke
of cattle directly toward the creek on the other side of which Charlie
yet stood, a tall, but animated landmark. When, after descending the
gradual slope on which the land lay, the trees that bordered the
stream hid the lad from view, it was decided that the furrow was long
enough to mark the westerly boundary line of the forty acres which it
was intended to break up for the first corn-field on the farm. Then
the oxen were turned, with some difficulty, at right angles with the
line just drawn, and were driven easterly until the southern boundary
of the patch was marked out. Turning, now, at right angles, and
tracing another line at the north, then again to the west to the point
of original departure, they had accurately defined the outer
boundaries of the field on which so much in the future depended; for
here was to be planted the first crop of the newcomers.
Younkins, having started the settlers in their first farming, returned
across the river to his own plough, first having sat down with the
Dixon party to a substantial dinner. For the boys, after the first few
furrows were satisfactorily turned, had gone back to the cabin and
made ready the noon meal. The ploughmen, when they came to the cabin
in answer to Sandy's whoop from the roof, had made a considerable
beginning in the field. They had gone around within the outer edge of
the plantation that was to be, leaving with each circuit a broader
band of black and shining loam over which a flock of birds hopped and
swept with eager movements, snapping up the insects and worms which,
astonished at the great upheaval, wriggled in the overturned turf.
"Looks sorter homelike here," said Younkins, with a pleased smile,
as he drew his bench to the well-spread board and glanced around at
the walls of the cabin, where the boys had already hung their
fishing-tackle, guns, Oscar's violin, and a few odds and ends that
gave a picturesque look to the long-deserted cabin.
"Yes," said Mr. Bryant, as he filled Younkins's tin cup with hot
coffee, "our boys have all got the knack of making themselves at
home,--runs in the blood, I guess,--and if you come over here again
in a day or two, you will probably find us with rugs on the floor and
pictures on the walls. Sandy is a master-hand at hunting; and he
intends to get a dozen buffalo-skins out of hand, so to speak, right
away." And he looked fondly at his freckled nephew as he spoke.
"A dibble and a corn-dropper will be more in his way than the rifle,
for some weeks to come," said Mr. Howell.
"What's a dibble?" asked both of the youngsters at once.
The elder man smiled and looked at Younkins as he said, "A dibble, my
lambs, is an instrument for the planting of corn. With it in one hand
you punch a hole in the sod that has been turned over, and then, with
the other hand, you drop in three or four grains of corn from the
corn-dropper, cover it with your heel, and there you are,--planted."
"Why, I supposed we were going to plant corn with a hoe; and we've got
the hoes, too!" cried Oscar.
"No, my son," said his father; "if we were to plant corn with a hoe,
we shouldn't get through planting before next fall, I am afraid. After
dinner, we will make some dibbles for you boys, for you must begin to
drop corn to-morrow. What ploughing we have done to-day, you can
easily catch up with when you begin. And the three of you can all be
on the furrow at once, if that seems worth while."
The boys very soon understood fully what a dibble was, and what a
corn-dropper was, strange though those implements were to them at
first. Before the end of planting-time, they fervently wished they had
never seen either of these instruments of the corn-planter.
With the aid of a few rude tools, there was fashioned a staff from the
tough hickory that grew near at hand, the lower part of the stick
being thick and pointed at the end. The staff was about as high as
would come up to a boy's shoulder, so that as he grasped it near the
upper end, his arm being bent, the lower end was on the ground.
The upper end was whittled so as to make a convenient handle for the
user. The lower end was shaped carefully into something like the
convex sides of two spoons put together by their bowls, and the lower
edge of this part was shaved down to a sharpness that was increased by
slightly hardening it in the fire. Just above the thickest part of the
dibble, a hole was bored at right angles through the wood, and into
this a peg was driven so that several inches stuck out on both sides
of the instrument. This completed the dibble.
"So that is a dibble, is it?" said Oscar, when the first one was shown
him. "A dibble. Now let's see how you use it."
Thereupon his Uncle Aleck stood up, grasped the staff by the upper
end, pressed his foot on the peg at the lower end of the tool, and so
forced the sharp point of the dibble downward into the earth. Then,
drawing it out, a convex slit was shown in the elastic turf. Shaking
an imaginary grain of corn into the hole, he closed it with a stamp of
his heel, stepped on and repeated the motion a few times, and then
said, "That's how they plant corn on the sod in Kansas."
"Uncle Aleck, what a lot you know!" said Oscar, with undisguised
admiration.
Meanwhile, Mr. Bryant, taking a pair of old boots, cut off the legs
just above the ankles, and, fastening in the lower end of each a round
bit of wood, by means of small nails, quickly made a pair of
corn-droppers. Sandy's belt, being passed through the loop-strap of
one of these, was fastened around his waist. The dropper was to be
filled with corn, and, thus accoutred, he was ready for doing duty in
the newly ploughed field. When the lad expressed his impatience for
another day to come so that he could begin corn-planting, the two
elders of the family laughed outright.
"Sandy, boy, you will be glad when to-morrow night comes, so that you
can rest from your labors. You remember what I tell you!" said his
father.
Nevertheless, when the two boys stepped bravely out, next morning, in
the wake of the breaking-team, they were not in the least dismayed by
the prospect of working all day in the heavy furrows of the plough.
Bryant drove the leading yoke of oxen, Charlie tried his 'prentice
hand with the second yoke, and Howell held the plough.
"'He that by the plough would thrive,
Must either hold the plough or drive,'"
commented Oscar, filling his corn-dropper and eyeing his father's
rather awkward handling of the ox-goad. Uncle Aleck had usually driven
the cattle, but his hand was now required in the more difficult
business of holding the plough.
"'Plough deep while sluggards sleep,'" replied his father; "and if you
don't manage better with dropping corn than I do with driving these
oxen, we shall have a short crop."
"How many grains of corn to a hole, Uncle Aleck? and how many bushels
to the acre?" asked Oscar.
"Not more than five grains nor less than three is the rule, my boy.
Now then, step out lively."
And the big team swept down the slope, leaving a broad and shining
furrow behind it. The two boys followed, one about twenty feet behind
the other, and when the hindermost had come up to the work of him who
was ahead, he skipped the planted part and went on ahead of his
comrade twenty feet, thus alternating each with the other. They were
cheerily at work when, apparently from under the feet of the forward
yoke of oxen, a bird somewhat bigger than a robin flew up with shrieks
of alarm and went fluttering off along the ground, tumbling in the
grass as if desperately wounded and unable to fly. Sandy made a rush
for the bird, which barely eluded his clutches once or twice, and
drew him on and on in a fruitless chase; for the timid creature soon
recovered the use of its wings, and soaring aloft, disappeared in the
depths of the sky.
"That's the deceivingest bird I ever saw," panted Sandy, out of breath
with running, and looking shamefacedly at the corn that he had spilled
in his haste to catch his prey. "Why, it acted just as if its right
wing was broken, and then it flew off as sound as a nut, for all I
could see."
When the ploughmen met them, on the next turn of the team, Uncle Aleck
said, "Did you catch the lapwing, you silly boy? That fellow fooled
you nicely."
"Lapwing?" said Sandy, puzzled. "What's a lapwing?" But the ploughmen
were already out of earshot.
"Oh, I know now," said Oscar. "I've read of the lapwing; it is a bird
so devoted to its young, or its nest, that when it fancies either in
danger, it assumes all the distress of a wounded thing, and,
fluttering along the ground, draws the sportsman away from the
locality."
"Right out of a book, Oscar!" cried Sandy. "And here's its nest, as
sure as I'm alive!" So saying, the lad stooped, and, parting the grass
with his hands, disclosed a pretty nest sunk in the ground, holding
five finely speckled eggs. The bird, so lately playing the cripple,
cried and circled around the heads of the boys as they peered into the
home of the lapwing.
"Well, here's an actual settler that we must disturb, Sandy," said
Oscar; "for the plough will smash right through this nest on the very
next turn. Suppose we take it up and put it somewhere else, out of
harm's way?"
"I'm willing," assented Sandy; and the two boys, carefully extracting
the nest from its place, carried it well over into the ploughed
ground, where under the lee of a thick turf it was left in safety.
But, as might have been expected, the parent lapwing never went near
that nest again. The fright had been too great.
"What in the world are you two boys up to now?" shouted Uncle Aleck
from the other side of the ploughing. "Do you call that dropping corn?
Hurry and catch up with the team; you are 'way behind."
"Great Scott!" cried Sandy; "I had clean forgotten the corn-dropping.
A nice pair of farmers we are, Oscar!" and the lad, with might and
main, began to close rapidly the long gap between him and the steadily
moving ox-team.
"Leg-weary work, isn't it, Sandy?" said his father, when they stopped
at noon to take the luncheon they had brought out into the field with
them.
"Yes, and I'm terribly hungry," returned the boy, biting into a huge
piece of cold corn-bread. "I shouldn't eat this if I were at home, and
I shouldn't eat it now if I weren't as hungry as a bear. Say, daddy,
you cannot think how tired my leg is with the punching of that dibble
into the sod; seems as if I couldn't hold out till sundown; but I
suppose I shall. First, I punch a hole by jamming down the dibble with
my foot, and then I kick the hole again with the same foot, after I
have dropped in the grains of corn. These two motions are dreadfully
tiresome."
"Yes," said his uncle, with a short laugh, "and while I was watching
you and Oscar, this forenoon, I couldn't help thinking that you did
not yet know how to make your muscles bear an equal strain. Suppose
you try changing legs?"
"Changing legs?" exclaimed both boys at once. "Why, how could we
exchange legs?"
"I know what Uncle Aleck means. I saw you always used the right leg to
jam down the dibble with, and then you kicked the hole full with the
right heel. No wonder your right legs are tired. Change hands and
legs, once in a while, and use the dibble on the left side of you,"
said Charlie, whose driving had tired him quite as thoroughly.
"Isn't Charlie too awfully knowing for anything, Oscar?" said Sandy,
with some sarcasm. Nevertheless, the lad got up, tried the dibble with
his left hand, and saying, "Thanks, Charlie," dropped down upon the
fragrant sod and was speedily asleep, for a generous nooning was
allowed the industrious lads.