The Cost [60]
the barn.
"Bring back a fork for me, Bill!" he called to the driver of the nearer wagon--Bill was standing on the lofty top of his load, which projected forward and rear so far that, forward, the horses were half canopied. Against Bill's return he borrowed Gabbard's fork and helped complete the other wagon, the sweat streaming from his face as his broad shoulders swung down with the empty fork and up with a great mat of hay.
They worked alternately in the fields and at the barns until half-past eleven. Then they went into the shade at the edge of the meadow and had their dinner.
"My old woman," said Gabbard, "says that two set-down meals a day in harvest time's as many as she'll stand for. So we have dinner out here in good weather, and to the barn when it rains."
The talk was of weather prospects, of probable tonnage to the acre, of the outlook for the corn, of the health and family expectations of the mares and the cows and the pigs. It died away gradually as one man after another stretched out upon his back with a bunch of hay for an odorous pillow and his broad-brimmed straw hat for a light-shade. Scarborough was the fourth man to yield; as he dozed off his hat was hiding that smile of boundless content which comes only to him who stretches his well body upon grass or soft stubble and feels the vigor of the earth steal up and through him. "Why don't I do this oftener?" Scarborough was saying to himself. "I must--and I shall, now that my mind's more at ease."
A long afternoon of the toil that tires and vexes not, and at sundown he was glad to ride home on top of the last wagon instead of walking as he had intended. The supper-table was ready--was spread in the dining-shed. They washed their hands and sunburnt arms and soused their heads in cold water from the well, and sat, Scarborough at one end, Gabbard at the other, the strapping sons and the "hands" down either side. The whole meal was before them--huge platters of fried chicken, great dishes full of beans and corn and potatoes; plates piled high with hot corn bread, other plates of "salt-rising"; Mrs. Gabbard's miraculous apple pies, and honey for which the plundered flowers might still be mourning. Yesterday it would have seemed to Scarborough dinner enough for a regiment. To-day--he thought he could probably eat it all, and wished that he might try. To drink, there were coffee and cider and two kinds of milk. He tried the buttermilk and kept on with it.
"You must 'a' had a busy summer," said Gabbard. "This is the first time you've been with us."
"Yes," Scarborough replied. "I did hope to get here for the threshing, but I couldn't."
The threshing set them all off--it had been a record year; thirty-eight bushels to the acre on the average, twenty-seven on the hillsides which Gabbard had hesitated whether to "put in" or not. An hour after supper Scarborough could no longer hold his eyes open. "Wake me with the others," he said to Mrs. Gabbard, who was making up the "salt-rising" yeast for the morrow's baking. "I'll have breakfast when they do."
"I reckon you've earned it," said Mrs. Gabbard. "Eph says you laid it over 'em all to-day."
"Well, I guess I at least earned my supper," replied Scarborough. "And I guess I ate it."
"You didn't do so bad, considerin'," Mrs. Gabbard admitted. "Nothin' like livin' in town to take appetite away."
"That isn't all it takes away," said Scarborough, going on to his own part of the house without explaining his remark. When his head touched the pillow his brain instantly stopped the machinery. He needed no croonings or dronings from the fields to soothe him. "Not an idea in my head all day," he said to himself with drowsy delight.
Four days of this, and on the fifth came the outside world in the form of Burdick, chairman of the county committee of his party in the county in which his farm lay. They sat on the fence under the big maple, out of earshot of the others.
"Larkin's come out for John Frankfort for the nomination for governor," said Burdick.
Scarborough
"Bring back a fork for me, Bill!" he called to the driver of the nearer wagon--Bill was standing on the lofty top of his load, which projected forward and rear so far that, forward, the horses were half canopied. Against Bill's return he borrowed Gabbard's fork and helped complete the other wagon, the sweat streaming from his face as his broad shoulders swung down with the empty fork and up with a great mat of hay.
They worked alternately in the fields and at the barns until half-past eleven. Then they went into the shade at the edge of the meadow and had their dinner.
"My old woman," said Gabbard, "says that two set-down meals a day in harvest time's as many as she'll stand for. So we have dinner out here in good weather, and to the barn when it rains."
The talk was of weather prospects, of probable tonnage to the acre, of the outlook for the corn, of the health and family expectations of the mares and the cows and the pigs. It died away gradually as one man after another stretched out upon his back with a bunch of hay for an odorous pillow and his broad-brimmed straw hat for a light-shade. Scarborough was the fourth man to yield; as he dozed off his hat was hiding that smile of boundless content which comes only to him who stretches his well body upon grass or soft stubble and feels the vigor of the earth steal up and through him. "Why don't I do this oftener?" Scarborough was saying to himself. "I must--and I shall, now that my mind's more at ease."
A long afternoon of the toil that tires and vexes not, and at sundown he was glad to ride home on top of the last wagon instead of walking as he had intended. The supper-table was ready--was spread in the dining-shed. They washed their hands and sunburnt arms and soused their heads in cold water from the well, and sat, Scarborough at one end, Gabbard at the other, the strapping sons and the "hands" down either side. The whole meal was before them--huge platters of fried chicken, great dishes full of beans and corn and potatoes; plates piled high with hot corn bread, other plates of "salt-rising"; Mrs. Gabbard's miraculous apple pies, and honey for which the plundered flowers might still be mourning. Yesterday it would have seemed to Scarborough dinner enough for a regiment. To-day--he thought he could probably eat it all, and wished that he might try. To drink, there were coffee and cider and two kinds of milk. He tried the buttermilk and kept on with it.
"You must 'a' had a busy summer," said Gabbard. "This is the first time you've been with us."
"Yes," Scarborough replied. "I did hope to get here for the threshing, but I couldn't."
The threshing set them all off--it had been a record year; thirty-eight bushels to the acre on the average, twenty-seven on the hillsides which Gabbard had hesitated whether to "put in" or not. An hour after supper Scarborough could no longer hold his eyes open. "Wake me with the others," he said to Mrs. Gabbard, who was making up the "salt-rising" yeast for the morrow's baking. "I'll have breakfast when they do."
"I reckon you've earned it," said Mrs. Gabbard. "Eph says you laid it over 'em all to-day."
"Well, I guess I at least earned my supper," replied Scarborough. "And I guess I ate it."
"You didn't do so bad, considerin'," Mrs. Gabbard admitted. "Nothin' like livin' in town to take appetite away."
"That isn't all it takes away," said Scarborough, going on to his own part of the house without explaining his remark. When his head touched the pillow his brain instantly stopped the machinery. He needed no croonings or dronings from the fields to soothe him. "Not an idea in my head all day," he said to himself with drowsy delight.
Four days of this, and on the fifth came the outside world in the form of Burdick, chairman of the county committee of his party in the county in which his farm lay. They sat on the fence under the big maple, out of earshot of the others.
"Larkin's come out for John Frankfort for the nomination for governor," said Burdick.
Scarborough