Frank cared little for books but he could take a hand at games although he was not strong. Burton who at sixteen was almost as tall as his father was the last to surrender his saddle to the ash-bin. He often rode his high-headed horse past our house on his way to town, and I especially recall one day, when as Frank and I were walking to town (one fourth of July) Burt came galloping along with five dollars in his pocket.—We could not see the five dollars but we did get the full force and dignity of his cavalier approach, and his word was sufficient proof of the cash he had to spend. As he rode on we, in crushed humility, resumed our silent plodding in the dust of his horse's hooves.
His round of labor, like my own, was well established. In spring he drove team and drag. In haying he served as stacker. In harvest he bound his station. In stacking he pitched bundles. After stacking he plowed or went out "changing works" and ended the season's work by husking corn—a job that increased in severity from year to year, as the fields grew larger. In '74 it lasted well into November. Beginning in the warm and golden September we kept at it (off and on) until sleety rains coated the ears with ice and the wet soil loaded our boots with huge balls of clay and grass—till the snow came whirling by on the wings of the north wind and the last flock of belated geese went sprawling sidewise down the ragged sky. Grim business this! At times our wet gloves froze on our hands.
How primitive all our notions were! Few of the boys owned overcoats and the same suit served each of us for summer and winter alike. In lieu of ulsters most of us wore long, gay-colored woolen scarfs wound about our heads and necks—scarfs which our mothers, sisters or sweethearts had knitted for us. Our footwear continued to be boots of the tall cavalry model with pointed toes and high heels. Our collars were either home-made ginghams or "boughten" ones of paper at fifteen cents per box. Some men went so far as to wear "dickies," that is to say, false shirt fronts made of paper, but this was considered a silly cheat. No one in our neighborhood ever saw a tailor-made suit, and nothing that we wore fitted,—our clothes merely enclosed us.
Harriet, like the other women, made her own dresses, assisted by my mother, and her best gowns in summer were white muslin tied at the waist with ribbons. All the girls dressed in this simple fashion, but as I write, recalling the glowing cheeks and shining eyes of Hattie and Agnes and Bess, I feel again the thrill of admiration which ran through my blood as they came down the aisle at church, or when at dancing parties they balanced or "sashayed" in Honest John or Money Musk.—To me they were perfectly clothed and divinely fair.
The contrast between the McClintocks, my hunter uncles, and Addison Garland, my father's brother who came to visit us at about this time was strikingly significant even to me. Tall, thoughtful, humorous and of frail and bloodless body, "A. Garland" as he signed himself, was of the Yankee merchant type. A general store in Wisconsin was slowly making him a citizen of substance and his quiet comment brought to me an entirely new conception of the middle west and its future. He was a philosopher. He peered into the years that were to come and paid little heed to the passing glories of the plain. He predicted astounding inventions and great cities, and advised my father to go into dairying and diversified crops. "This is a natural butter country," said he.
He was an invalid, and it was through him that we first learned of graham flour. During his stay (and for some time after) we suffered an infliction of sticky "gems" and dark soggy bread. We all resented this displacement of our usual salt-rising loaf and delicious saleratus biscuits but we ate the hot gems, liberally splashed with butter, just as we would have eaten dog-biscuit or hardtack had it been put before us.
One of the sayings of my uncle will fix his character in the mind of the reader. One day, apropos of some public event which displeased him, he said, "Men can be infinitely more foolish in their collective capacity than on their own individual account." His quiet utterance of these words and especially the phrase "collective capacity" made a deep impression on me. The underlying truth of the saying came to me only later in my life.
He was full of "citrus-belt" enthusiasm and told us that he was about to sell out and move to Santa Barbara. He did not urge my father to accompany him, and if he had, it would have made no difference. A winterless climate and the raising of fruit did not appeal to my Commander. He loved the prairie and the raising of wheat and cattle, and gave little heed to anything else, but to me Addison's talk of "the citrus belt" had the value of a romance, and the occasional Spanish phrases which he used afforded me an indefinable delight. It was unthinkable that I should ever see an arroyo but I permitted myself to dream of it while he talked.
I think he must have encouraged my sister in her growing desire for an education, for in the autumn after his visit she entered the Cedar Valley Seminary at Osage and her going produced in me a desire to accompany her. I said nothing of it at the time, for my father gave but reluctant consent to Harriet's plan. A district school education seemed to him ample for any farmer's needs.
Many of our social affairs were now connected with "the Grange." During these years on the new farm while we were busied with breaking and fencing and raising wheat, there had been growing up among the farmers of the west a social organization officially known as The Patrons of Husbandry. The places of meeting were called "Granges" and very naturally the members were at once called "Grangers."