• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Following them to a flatbed wagon, I scrambled aboard as they did. Another boy, standing at the front, flicked the reins and two Percherons sprang into motion. In anticipation of their forward lunge I was already sitting cross-legged on the wagon bed while the men stood and swayed as it undulated, like sailors on the deck of a ship.

After a short journey behind the barnyard area and through a hedgerow, we came to a field littered with shocks of wheat. The tumbledown oat piles Bill and I had put together could not compare with these. Each was a small Parthenon, precise in the number and spacing of its fluted sheaf-pillars which supported a perfectly symmetrical sheaf roof.

The task before us almost seemed a desecration. After spilling to the ground, the men somberly and silently began thrusting their forks into the first shock. In moments it no longer existed. They moved onto the next one, and the wagon followed.

As I looked closer I observed that they were catching the sheaves (the bundles of wheat of which the shocks were constructed) by their twine bindings. Thrusting into as many as they could hook in this way, they would lift them high over their heads, balancing them aloft on the short trip to the wagon. There they dropped them. Another worker who stood on the flatbed scampered to arrange the sheaves, packing them tightly in layers.

The time had come for me to give it a shot.

I began by impaling a single sheaf. It was surprisingly light and I wielded it easily, thrusting it upwards, balancing it overhead as I stepped toward the wagon. There, imitating the others, I gave it a gentle flick. It landed right where it was supposed to, and the packer tucked it in place. There was something delightfully gastronomic about the task as if, with my long fork, I were placing oversized biscuits of shredded wheat onto a platter. As my confidence increased, I upped the helping to two biscuits.

As the pile grew, I will confess, it was no longer so easy to flick the sheaves to their spot at the feet of the packer. It took a healthy grunt to place the load onto a rising mound that was now at shoulder height.

…Now it was over my head.

…My right arm began to burn.

A sheaf I tossed came back on me and hit me rudely in the face.

A couple of the men smiled.

The size of the heap on the wagon seemed tremendous, yet the crew kept adding to it, thrusting up sheaves as if they would never tire. Occasionally some mopped their brows and remarked on the day’s unusual warmth, but most remained stoically silent. I tried to muffle my grunting sounds—I fear I might otherwise have roared—as I strove to hurl my sheaves ever upwards.

At last someone muttered, “Call it a load.”

The straw Matterhorn rolled slowly away, and an empty wagon took its place.

Gradually the rows of golden Parthenons fused into an immense bonfire shimmering in the gelatinous air. My temples began to throb, and everything started to get blurry. Only the occasional, slight movement of air brought relief; my clothing was like a plastic bag that sealed in perspiration. The heat was like nothing I’d ever experienced. It seemed to bake me from within.

One of the men turned to me: “How’s the ‘good life’ treating you?” There was a smirk on his face. The phrase “good life” rang a bell…I realized he was quoting from my letter. Had the bishop shown him my letter? Had they all read my letter? Blushing (as if more red would show on my already crimson face), I tried to gauge my response. Fine particles of straw dust permeating the air chose this moment to gather in force behind my nostrils, however, and instead of saying something, I sneezed. Sneezes became sneezing attacks became paroxysms.

Someone standing above the scene during the next round might have beheld what looked like a thresherman playing blindman’s bluff. I have dreamlike recollections of a wagon loader dodging my pitchfork. I can still hear a voice saying, “When you start to get chills, you know it’s time to stop.”

Perhaps it would have been better if they