My responsibilities were now those of a man. I was nearly full grown, quick and powerful of hand, and vain of my strength, which was, in fact, unusual and of decided advantage to me. Nothing ever really tired me out. I could perform any of my duties with ease, and none of the men under me ever presumed to question my authority. As harvest came on I took my place on our new Marsh harvester, and bound my half of over one hundred acres of heavy grain.
The crop that year was enormous. At times, as I looked out over the billowing acres of wheat which must not only be reaped and bound and shocked and stacked but also threshed, before there was the slightest chance of my returning to the Seminary, my face grew long and my heart heavy.
Burton shared this feeling, for he, too, had become profoundly interested in the Seminary and was eager to return, eager to renew the friendships he had gained. We both wished to walk once more beneath the maple trees in clean well-fitting garments, and above all we hungered to escape the curry-comb and the cow.
Both of us retained our membership in the Adelphian Debating Society, and occasionally drove to town after the day's work to take part in the Monday meetings. Having decided, definitely, to be an orator, I now went about with a copy of Shakespeare in my pocket and ranted the immortal soliloquies of Hamlet and Richard as I held the plow, feeling certain that I was following in the footprints of Lincoln and Demosthenes.
Sundays brought a special sweet relief that summer, a note of finer poetry into all our lives, for often after a bath behind the barn we put on clean shirts and drove away to Osage to meet George and Mitchell, or went to church to see some of the girls we had admired at the Seminary. On other Sabbaths we returned to our places at the Burr Oak school-house, enjoying as we used to do, a few hours' forgetfulness of the farm.
My father, I am glad to say, never insisted upon any religious observance on the part of his sons, and never interfered with any reasonable pleasure even on Sunday. If he made objection to our trips it was usually on behalf of the cattle. "Go where you please," he often said, "only get back in time to do the milking." Sometimes he would ask, "Don't you think the horses ought to have a rest as well as yourselves?" He was a stern man but a just man, and I am especially grateful to him for his non-interference with my religious affairs.
All that summer and all the fall I worked like a hired man, assuming in addition the responsibilities of being boss. I bound grain until my arms were raw with briars and in stacking-time I wallowed round and round upon my knees, building great ricks of grain, taking obvious pride in the skill which this task required until my trousers, reinforced at the knees, bagged ungracefully and my hands, swollen with the act of grappling the heavy bundles as they were thrown to me, grew horny and brown and clumsy, so that I quite despaired of ever being able to write another letter. I was very glad not to have my Seminary friends see me in this unlovely condition.
However, I took a well-defined pride in stacking, for it was a test of skill. It was clean work. Even now, as I ride a country lane, and see men at work handling oats or hay, I recall the pleasurable sides of work on the farm and long to return to it.
The radiant sky of August and September on the prairie was a never failing source of delight to me. Nature seemed resting, opulent, self-satisfied and honorable. Every phase of the landscape indicated a task fulfilled. There were still and pulseless days when slaty-blue clouds piled up in the west and came drifting eastward with thunderous accompaniment, to break the oppressive heat and leave the earth cool and fresh from having passed. There were misty, windy days when the sounding, southern breeze swept the yellow stubble like a scythe; when the sky, without a cloud, was whitened by an overspreading haze; when the crickets sang sleepily as if in dream of eternal summer; and the grasshoppers clicked and buzzed from stalk to stalk in pure delight of sunshine and the harvest.
Another humbler source of pleasure in stacking was the watermelon which, having been picked in the early morning and hidden under the edge of the stack, remained deliciously cool till mid-forenoon, when at a signal, the men all gathered in the shadow of the rick, and leisurely ate their fill of juicy "mountain sweets." Then there was the five o'clock supper, with its milk and doughnuts and pie which sent us back to our task—replete, content, ready for another hour of toil.