Part 16 (2/2)

The timothy harvest is attractive to all, and it would be hard to find a form of labor which contributes more to the aesthetic sense than does the gathering of this fragrant gra.s.s. At four o'clock on a fine morning, with the barometer ”set fair,” Thompson started the mower, and kept it humming until 6.30, when Zeb, with a fresh team, relieved him. Zeb tried to cut a little faster than his father, but he was allowed no more time. Promptly at nine he was called in, and there was to be no more cutting that day. At eleven o'clock the tedder was started, and in two hours the cut gra.s.s had been turned. At three o'clock the rake gathered it into windrows, from which it was rolled and piled into heaps, or c.o.c.ks, of six hundred or eight hundred pounds each. The cutting of the morning was in safe bunches before the dew fell, there to go through the process of sweating until ten o'clock the next day. It was then opened and fluffed out for four hours, after which all hands and all teams turned to and hauled it into the forage barn.

The gra.s.s that was cut one morning was safely housed as hay by the second night, if the weather was favorable; if not, it took little harm in the hayc.o.c.ks, even from foul weather. It is the sun-bleach that takes the life out of hay.

This year we had no trouble in getting fifty tons of as fine timothy hay as horses could wish to eat or man could wish to see. We began to cut on Tuesday, the 6th of July, and by Sat.u.r.day evening the twenty-acre crop was under cover. The boys blistered their hands with the fork handles, and their faces, necks, and arms with the sun's rays, and claimed to like the work and the blisters. Indeed, tossing clean, fragrant hay is work fit for a prince; and a man never looks to better advantage or more picturesque than when, redolent with its perfume, he slings a jug over the crook in his elbow and listens to the gurgle of the home-made ginger ale as it changes from jug to throat. There may be joys in other drinks, but for solid comfort and refreshment give me a July hay-field at 3 P.M., a jug of water at forty-eight degrees, with just the amount of mola.s.ses, vinegar, and ginger that is Polly's secret, and I will give cards and spades to the broadest goblet of bubbles that was ever poured, and beat it to a standstill. Add to this a blond head under a broad hat, a thin white gown, such as gra.s.shoppers love, and you can see why the emptying of the jug was a satisfying function in our field; for Jane was the one who presided at these afternoon teas. Often Jane was not alone; Florence or Jessie, or both, or others, made hay while the sun shone in those July days, and many a load went to the barn capped with white and laughter. The young people decided that a hay farm would be ideal--no end better than a factory farm--and advised me to put all the land into timothy and clover. I was not too old to see the beauties of haying-time, with such voluntary labor; but I was too old and too much interested with my experiment to be cajoled by a lot of youngsters. I promised them a week of haying in each fifty-two, but that was all the concession I would make. Laura said:--

”We are commanded to make hay while the sun s.h.i.+nes; and the sun always s.h.i.+nes at Four Oaks, for me.”

It was pretty of her to say that; but what else would one expect from Laura?

The twelve acres from which the fodder oats had been cut were ploughed and fitted for sugar beets and turnips. I was not at all certain that the beets would do anything if sown so late, but I was going to try. Of the turnips I could feel more certain, for doth not the poet say:--

”The 25th day of July, Sow your turnips, wet or dry”?

As the 25th fell on Sunday, I tried to placate the agricultural poet by sowing half on the 24th and the other half on the 26th, but it was no use. Whether the turnip G.o.d was offended by the fractured rule and refused his blessing, or whether the dry August and September prevented full returns, is more than I can say. Certain it is that I had but a half crop of turnips and a beggarly batch of beets to comfort me and the hogs.

Some little consolation, however, was found in Polly's joy over a small crop of currants which her yearling bushes produced. I also heard rumors of a few cherries which turned their red cheeks to the sun for one happy day, and then disappeared. c.o.c.k Robin's breast was red the next morning, and on this circ.u.mstantial evidence Polly accused him. He pleaded ”not guilty,” and strutted on the lawn with his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat and his suspected breast as much in evidence as a pouter pigeon's. A jury, mostly of blackbirds, found the charge ”not proven,”

and the case was dismissed. I was convinced by the result of this trial that the only safe way would be to provide enough cherries for the birds and for the people too, and ordered fifty more trees for fall planting.

I found by experience, that if one would have bird neighbors (and who would not?), he must provide liberally for their wants and also for their luxuries. I have stolen a march as to the cherries by planting scores of mulberry trees, both native and Russian. Birds love mulberries even better than they do cherries, and we now eat our pies in peace. To make amends for this ruse, I have established a number of drinking fountains and free baths; all of which have helped to make us friends.

In August I sold, near the top of a low market, 156 young hogs. At $4.50 per hundred, the bunch netted me $1807. They did not weigh quite as much as those sold the previous autumn, and I found two ways of accounting for this. The first and most probable was that fall pigs do not grow so fast as those farrowed in the spring. This is sufficient to account for the fact that the herd average was twenty pounds lighter than that of its predecessor. I could not, however, get over the notion that Anderson's nervousness had in some way taken possession of the swine (we have Holy Writ for a similar case), and that they were wasted in growth by his spirit of unrest. He was uniformly kind to them and faithful with their food, but there was lacking that sense of cordial sympathy which should exist between hog and man if both would appear at their best. Even when Anderson came to their pens reeking with the rich savor of the food they loved, their ears would p.r.i.c.k up (as much as a Chester White's ears can), and with a ”woof!” they would shoot out the door, only to return in a moment with the greatest confidence. I never heard that ”woof” and saw the stampede without looking around for the ”steep place” and the ”sea,” feeling sure that the incident lacked only these accessories to make it a catastrophe.

Anderson was good and faithful, and he would work his arms and legs off for the pigs; but the spirit of unrest entered every herd which he kept, though neither he nor I saw it clearly enough to go and ”tell it in the city.” With other swineherds my hogs averaged from fifteen to eighteen pounds better than with faithful Anderson, and I am, therefore, competent to speak of the gross weight of the spirit of contentment.

CHAPTER XLI

STRIKE AT GORDON'S MINE

Frank Gordon owned a coal mine about six miles west of the village of Exeter, and four miles from Four Oaks. A village called Gordonville had sprung up at the mouth of the mine. It was the home of the three hundred miners and their families,--mostly Huns, but with a sprinkling of Cornishmen.

The houses were built by the owner of the mine, and were leased to the miners at a small yearly rental. They were modest in structure, but they could be made inviting and neat if the occupants were thrifty. No one was allowed to sell liquor on the property owned by the Gordons, but outside of this limit was a fringe of low saloons which did a thriving business off the improvident miners.

There had never been a strike at Gordonville, and such a thing seemed improbable, for Gordon was a kind master, who paid his men promptly and looked after their interests more than is usual for a capitalist.

It was, therefore, a distinct surprise when the foreman of the mine telephoned to Gordon one July morning that the men had struck work.

Gordon did not understand the reason of it, but he expressed himself as being heartily glad, for financial reasons, that the men had gone out.

He had more than enough coal on the surface and in cars to supply the demand for the next three months, and it would be money in his pocket to dispose of his coal without having to pay for the labor of replacing it.

During the day the reason for the strike was announced. From the establishment of the mine it had been the custom for the miners to have their tools sharpened at a shop built and run by the property. This was done for the accommodation of the men, and the charge for keeping the tools sharp was ten cents a week for each man, or $5 a year. For twenty years no fault had been found with the arrangement; it had been looked upon as satisfactory, especially by the men. A walking delegate, mousing around the mine, and finding no other cause for complaint, had lighted upon this practice, and he told the men it was a shame that they should have to pay ten cents a week out of their hard-earned wages for keeping their tools sharp. He said that it was the business of the property to keep the tools sharp, and that the men should not be called upon to pay for that service; that they ought, in justice to themselves and for the dignity of a.s.sociated labor, to demand that this onerous tax be removed; and, to insure its removal, he declared a strike on. This was the reason, and the only reason, for the strike at Gordon's mine. Three hundred men quit work, and three hundred families suffered, many of them for the necessities of life, simply because a loud-mouthed delegate a.s.sured them that they were being imposed upon.

Things went on quietly at the mine. There was no riot, no disturbance.

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