A DAY’S WORK
“Well, boys, I’m going to quit and call it a day!” As the Hope Farm man spoke he got up from his knees in the strawberry patch and proceeded to straighten out his back. It was half past four on Saturday, September 4. Our week’s work was done—all but the chores. Our folks had picked and packed and shipped four big truckloads of produce, with a surplus of nearly 100 bushels of apples and 60 baskets of tomatoes ahead for next week. This in addition to regular farm work—and one day off fishing for the boys. It does not seem possible that September has come upon us! I do not know how she even got here—yet the big hand on the clock’s calendar points to that date. When the foolish finger of “daylight saving” appears on the clock we can discount it, but there is no discounting the mark on the calendar. That is like the finger of fate. Yet it seems out of date. We have not finished picking Gravenstein apples. In former years Labor Day found us clearing up the McIntosh. This year we have not even touched them! Last year the Mammoth sweet corn was about cleaned out in August. Now we are beginning to pick. The season and the calendar are fighting this year. Now if they will both turn in and hold Jack Frost up for a couple of weeks later than usual we will forgive the season.
This morning I took this strawberry job from choice—surely no one else wanted it. Thomas had not come back from his night on the market. Philip cleaned up the chores, while the rest went to picking apples and tomatoes. My daughter goes across the lawn with 100 or more chickens at her heels. They are black Jersey Giants and R. I. Reds going to breakfast. Out on the cool back porch Mother is playing the part of family “Red.” That is, she is canning tomatoes. This porch is screened in, and there is an oil stove to put heat into the canning outfit. The lady is peeling a basket of big red fruit; her hands and arms are well smeared with the blood—not of martyrs, but of tomatoes! This job of mine would make one of those model gardeners too disgusted for comment. We set out the strawberry plants in April, in rows three feet apart, the plants two feet in the row. The soil is strong, and we wanted to push it hard. So in part of the patch we planted early peas between the rows, and in the rest early potatoes. The theory of this plan is sound enough. You get a big crop of peas and potatoes, and take them out in time for the berry plants to run out and cover the patch. In practice this does not always work. While the pea and potato vines stood up straight we kept the patch clean. Then came a time when these vines fell down and refused to get up. Then came the constant rains and the crab grass, and weeds came from all over to seek shelter under these vines. Before we could interfere the patch was a mass of this foul stuff, and the long rains kept it growing. The richness of the soil delayed ripening of the potatoes, and by the time we got them out the strawberry plants seemed lost in the tangle. Here I am cleaning up this mess. Most of the work must be done with the fingers—a hoe would tear up too many runners. You have to get down on your knees and pull. As I crawl across the patch I leave a pile of weeds behind me like a windrow. I hold up my fingers and it seems surprising that they are not worn down at least half an inch. If I had kept those peas and potatoes out of here the berries would be far better, and I would not have this crawling job. I am not to be alone here after all. That big black chicken leaves his crowd on the lawn and comes over here to scratch beside me. The Jersey Giants are very tame and enterprising. This one stays right at my elbow for hours—the only member of my family to take this job from choice. He will have all the worms I can dig out!
There is a rattle and a sputter on the driveway and the truck comes snorting into the barnyard. At the same time Tom and Broker, the big grays, come down the hill with a load of apples. Tom scents the gasoline and pricks back his ears with a snort. You can see him turn his head as if talking to sober old Broker:
“That fellow thinks he’s smart, but what fearful breath he has! For years we went on the road like honest horses and did all the marketing on the farm. Why does this man keep such a great awkward thing around? It may have speed, but I’ll bet it eats him out of house and home!”
“Well, now,” said old Broker, “every horse to his job. Working right on this farm is good enough for me. Let that truck do the road work, says I. No place like home for an honest horse like me.”
“Not much. I like a little life now and then. I want to get out on the road among horses and see what is going on. That great, lazy, smelling thing has got us farm-bound where nobody sees us or knows what we are doing. And look at the gasoline that thing eats up, and its keep—my stars!”