“We are going to get a crop this year. I feel it in my bones.”
“Yep, your bones said the same thing last year, if I remember right; but I didn’t see any crop, did you?”
“No, of course not; but listen, John: we can’t have a failure every year. There’s got to be a change sometime.”
“True as preaching; but if you are talking to brace up my courage, honey girl, you just don’t have to. My courage is up and coming. I’ll work sixteen hours a day, but I’ll get that wheat in at the right time. Does that make you feel easier?”
John sat down to a carefully prepared breakfast of ham, eggs and pancakes. There was but little conversation at the table. The men who raise the nation’s bread have but little time for talk. In twenty minutes John was out again, hitching the six horses to the gang-plow, four abreast across the tongue, and a lead team ahead.
Driving out through the yard, he came to the stubble; and half a mile to the westward he could just see a small piece of fluttering white fixed to a pole. Farther along was another, and at the end of a mile was a third. Maneuvering his team until the three stakes were in line, he drove to the edge of the field. Leaning to one side in his seat, he could see the stakes in line between the horses; then he kicked a lever, and the sharp lay-points dropped to the ground and slipped gently beneath the surface. There came the popping sound of sharp lays in roots and the whirring sound of knife-like coulters; and the stubble, shivering slightly, rose along the moldboards, to turn smoothly and fall bottom-side up, leaving a double furrow of black dirt behind the plow.
Half a mile down the field, Grahame stopped to throw the first stake across the plow. Sighting by the remaining pair, he finally came to the last one, and so out on to the section line. Behind him, a slender black line stretched away into the distance as true as a steel tape.
The second round was easier, for one horse of the lead team and one on the tongue were able to follow the furrow. Taking advantage of this, Grahame hung his handful of lines on the plow-levers while he walked behind and stamped some of the cold out of his joints. At his heels came old Shep, his assistant herder, on the lookout for mice, while behind the dog fluttered a flock of hardy blackbirds watching for worms turned out by the plow.
Five times before dinner and five times in the afternoon Grahame’s plow sliced its way out and back across the field. For the first few rounds he was busy making minor adjustments in the plow and harness, but after that there was nothing to do but ride until he was stiff and then to walk until he was tired. Some days it rained—if not enough to stop the plow, then just enough to make life miserable for horses and man. Sometimes the field was half obscured by snow-squalls or sleet. More often a hot sun started hard oil running from the axles and brought flecks of foam under the horses’ collars.
When Grahame and Jane had put in their first crop, fortune had favored them. A favorable season with steadily rising prices, enabled them to put up a good set of buildings and buy another quarter section, although purchasing the second, called for a mortgage on the first. A second good crop paid up a part of the mortgage on the land, bought additional stock and purchased the machinery they needed; and—then came the deluge. First certain impractical men then in power at the State capitol caused the golden stream of credit to be dammed—gold that had always flowed from the East to carry the farms from crop to crop. People in the East who had money to invest became frightened. They saw or thought they saw a great State crumbling to pieces in the hands of long-haired dreamers. Local banks, unable to borrow, could not lend; and worse yet, they had to collect. Next came the war, with prices which looked high and felt high, but still were below the cost of production. The Government thoughtfully put a price limit on wheat but allowed the price of machinery, twine and leather to climb as high as willing and able profiteers could push them. Lastly came years of drouth, until at the time when this story opens, Grahame had staked his last cent. One good crop would go far toward saving him. Another failure meant the loss of all he had.