The stalks were cut
with the right hand swinging the corn knife and carried on the left arm.
All day a man carried a heavy load of the stalks from which yellow ears
hung down. When the load became unbearably heavy it was carried to the
shock, and when all the corn was cut in a certain area, the shock was made
secure by binding it with tarred rope or with a tough stalk twisted to take
the place of the rope. When the cutting was done the long rows of stalks
stood up in the fields like sentinels, and the men crawled off to the
farmhouses and to bed, utterly weary.
Hugh's machine took all of the heavier part of the work away. It cut the
corn near the ground and bound it into bundles that fell upon a platform.
Two men followed the machine, one to drive the horses and the other to
place the bundles of stalks against the shocks and to bind the completed
shocks. The men went along smoking their pipes and talking. The horses
stopped and the driver stared out over the prairies. His arms did not ache
with weariness and he had time to think. The wonder and mystery of the wide
open places got a little into his blood. At night when the work was done
and the cattle fed and made comfortable in the barns, he did not go at once
to bed but sometimes went out of his house and stood for a moment under the
stars.
This thing the brain of the son of a mountain man, the poor white of the
river town, had done for the people of the plains.
Pages:
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257