Part 19

But working with hay, thinking hay, and almost eating hay is not conducive to a flow of poetical quotations. By the time the stack was completed and the top weighted down with a piece of wire and a couple of blocks of unsplittable wood from the woodpile I was tired out in mind and body. As soon as I could I stumbled away to the tent and slept like a log until five a.m. on the following morning, when a fly with a club-foot limped across my nose and wakened me to another day of toil and building.

Many explanations have been offered of the trend of country people to the cities, but it is possible that the true source of the difficulty has been overlooked. Students of the problem have been too practical. They have discussed the difficulty in terms of dollars and cents and of hard labour. An idealistic observer with keener insight might lay the blame on our literature and art. For some generations compulsory education has been scattering the leaven of learning in the rural districts, and what are we offering the new army of readers and seekers for culture? We are offering them history, romance, and poetry in which war, statecraft, social eminence, artistic, poetic, and professional ability yield to heroic souls ample harvests of success, fame, and perhaps content.

Agriculture, the most essential of the world's industries, has not been touched by the true glamour of literature and art. Poets and writers who have dealt with it have given us creations in dialect, and artists who have illustrated this kind of literature have depicted a race of men and women in jeans and gingham. This is not the kind of thing calculated to rouse the ambition of country boys and girls. Their heroes are fair spoken, well dressed, and skilled in courtly manners. They feel that to develop themselves and to make the most of their lives they must away to the cities where the things that literature and art glorify may be found or accomplished.

You cannot expect young men of spirit to take to farming until it has been idealised. In the present condition of public taste they can only hope to figure in literature as stupid and sometimes amusing drudges, and in art as raw-boned monstrosities with whiskers in their ears. They dream of military uniforms, places on boards of directors, and well-dressed triumphs of all kinds that are adequately applauded by beautiful women dressed in the latest fashion. All our literature and art tends to foster these foolish dreams. It is vain for philosophers to preach the advantages of the simple life and for editors to preach the great duty of producing the world's food. Duty, the "stern daughter of the voice of God," is not popular with the young. They want life and action and joyousness, because literature and art have taught them that these are the things most to be desired, and they hurry to the cities to find them.

The art of living has not penetrated to the country, and you need not expect it to make progress until we have that new race of poets and writers and artists which Whitman foresaw, but of which he was not the protagonist. He sang the glories of work--but did not work much. Thoreau with all his cantankerousness came nearer to the new literature. His farming was all done to supply his own needs, and he foresaw the possibilities of leisure and ease in connection with farm life when he said: "No man need earn his bread in the sweat of his brow unless he sweats more easily than I do."

"If the farmers learn to get leisure and use it the old order will change, and instead of a new heaven and a new earth we shall have a new earth and a new heaven. The change will begin on the earth. When farmers learn to work for homes and well-rounded lives, instead of for money, a new race of artists and writers will spring from the soil and give us the much-needed literature and art of democracy. They will give a romantic glamour to country life, and culture, instead of being handed down from the heights, will be handed up, or rather we shall have to go back to the soil to get it. Most of the free and equal citizens of the country are born on the land, and it is probable that in the near future all the people on the land will be well educated."

When that time comes we shall have a new literature, art, and poetry, and the world will be given new ideals. Instead of the age of poetry being past, it is merely beginning to dawn.

_July 25._--"Are you going to the raising?"

If not, you will miss the best entertainment the county affords. A properly-conducted barn-raising contains the excitement of a fire, the sociability of a garden party, and the sentimental delights of a summer resort "hop." The young men are given a chance to show their agility and prowess and the girls are enabled to shine as hostesses. Although it is especially a function for young people, there are always enough old folks on hand to give the occasion historical colour and perspective with their reminiscences of past raisings--some of them going back to the days of log barns and houses. In "the heroic period" the best man was the one who was competent to build a corner, and any one who examines one of the primitive buildings cannot but marvel at the skilful dovetailing done by the old-time cornerer. The modern framer, with all his tools, would find it hard to equal their work. In the traditions of those days there are stories of men who could run along a log and jump the opening left for the barn door--about fourteen feet--with a bottle of whiskey in each hand. Nowadays we have other men and other manners.

The preliminary work of a barn-raising is done in the winter months, when the timber for the frame is felled and squared. As the old-time broadaxe men who could hew to the line and turn out a stick of square timber that looked as if it had been planed have practically vanished from the earth, the posts, plates, beams, sills, girths, and girders are now squared at the sawmills. After the timber has been assembled where the barn is to be built the framers cut it to the required lengths and make the necessary joints, mortises, tenons, braces, and rafters. The invitations for the raising are then issued, and the housewife, usually helped by her friends, begins to cook for a multitude. The best that the county affords is prepared lavishly, for a raising is always followed by a great feast.

On the day of the raising a gang of men working under the directions of the framers put together the bents and sills. The latter are usually laid on cement foundations, as most modern barns have a basement stable for horses and cows. The bents, usually four in number, consist of the posts, beams, girths, and braces. They are put together, with all joints strongly pinned and laid overlapping one another on the foundation, with the tenons on the foot of each post ready to be entered into the mortises in the sills. Early in the afternoon the crowd begins to gather. When all who are expected have put in an appearance, captains are selected, who proceed to choose sides. Then is the anxious moment for the county beau who can feel holes burning in the back of his duck shirt because of

"A pair Of blue eyes sot upun it."

To be chosen first or to be among the first half-dozen is an honour you could appreciate more fully if in your youth you had been chosen second man. I admit it was only second, but, like the Emperor William in the patriotic but blasphemous German story, I was young then, and I left the country before I reached my growth. As each man is chosen, he leaves the crowd and joins the growing group about his captain. Not even "Casey" of baseball fame could make that short walk with more "ease and pride" than some of the county boys, and not a few of them prepare their hands for the coming fray, as he did when

"Ten thousand eyes admired him As he rubbed his hands with dirt; Five thousand throats applauded As he wiped them on his shirt."

When every one has been chosen down to such riffraff as visiting journalists and politicians, who can only be expected to help with the grunting when the lifting is being done, the real work of the raising begins. Although the rivals take opposite sides of the barn, they work together in putting up the main framework. "Ye-ho! Hee-eeve! All together now! Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!"

Slowly the first bent is lifted and shored up until the pike-poles can be brought into play.

"Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!"

Men with handspikes hold back the foot of each post so that the tenons may not slip past the mortises as the huge beams are being pushed up into the air.

"Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!"

At last the tenons slip home and the first bent is stay-lathed in place. The girths that connect with the next bent are put in place, braced, and stayed. Then another bent is heaved up and the extending girths fitted, braced, and pinned. So to the last bent. As it swings up the excitement becomes furious. While the bent is still at a dangerous angle, men clamber up to the collar beams and begin tugging at ropes attached to the heavy plates that are being hoisted against the frame. By the time the last posts have snapped into place the ends of the plates are already on the collar beams.

"Ye-ho! Hee-eeve! Ye-ho! Hee-eeve! Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!" The race is on!

The slanting plates are rapidly pushed high above the building. Sometimes they are liberally soaped to make them slip over the beams more easily. Now comes the spectacular act of the exciting performance. While the end of the plate is high in the air venturesome young men, anxious to make a reputation for reckless daring, shin up to the top so that they may "break" it more quickly. No sooner has it been brought down to the collar beams than it is pushed along the full length of the building. Now it must be lifted into place on the tenons at the tops of the posts.

"Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!"

The cheering suddenly changes to sharp calls and commands.

"Where's that brace?"

"Throw me a commander!"

"Throw me a pin!"

Bang! Bang! Bang! The pins are driven home.

The main plates are pinned into place and the lighter purlines are already lying on the beams with posts fitted in and braced. Now they must be hoisted.

"Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!"

"Where's that strut?"

Now for the rafters! They are already leaning against the main plates, with one end on the ground. Hand over hand they are pulled up, fitted into their places in the plate and laid across the rising purlines. This is the breathless end of the race. The purline is up! The rafters in place!

"All down!"

The winners spill down from the building as if they would break their necks.

"Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!"

The race is over; the winners rush for the tables that are spread on the lawn, and the laughter of girls and women takes the place of the hoarse yelling and cheering of the men. Under a shower of compliments the winners wash up and range around the tables, where they are waited on by the girls. The losers, who may have been only a few rafters behind, are forced to wait for "the second tables." Under the influence of the feasting the excitement soon dies down and both winners and losers share in the general good humour.

Sometimes the contending sides indulge in a game of baseball if there is still time and they feel like exerting themselves after their full meal. Not infrequently the day ends with a dance--not old-fashioned square dances, but up-to-date waltzes with music provided by a graduate of some ladies' college presiding at one of those grand pianos that appear like mushrooms after a season of good crops. The old fiddler rasping out "The Irish Washerwoman" has gone "glimmering down the dust of days that were," with so many other country institutions.

Then comes the drive home through the moonlight, along the country roads and past the sweet-smelling clover fields. As the young men are always heroic and the girls bewitching on these occasions, there is no telling how many romances take definite form at barn-raisings. What have the cities to offer in comparison with this for excitement, fun, and sentiment? Nothing--absolutely nothing!

_July 27._--The fat steers are now occupying the centre of the stage. They are being shipped from this district, not simply in carload lots, but in trainloads. It is sad to think that they will so soon lose their colonial identity and begin to masquerade on imperial tables as the roast beef of Old England. For some months past they have been making a glorious showing in the pasture fields. A drive along the roads in any direction would be sure to bring into evidence herds of from twenty to thirty feeding in dehorned peace or chewing the cud under the shade trees. They gave an air of prosperity to the landscape fully as satisfying as the wheatfields of the hustling junior provinces. If old Ontario is being forced by changed conditions to let her fields run to pasture, she has fat steers to show for it that equal the best. The old scrub stock descended from the pioneer cattle that used to get through the winters by eating buds and licking the moss off the trees has entirely disappeared. In its place we have cattle that are bred for meat production, and the farmer who sells a herd of these gets in exchange a roll of bills that is too big to be hidden in a stump or hollow log. Nothing but a chartered bank will hold it. Like almost everything else the farmers have to sell nowadays, fat steers command a high price that makes one sympathise with the poor city people who must buy. But when the farmers are prosperous, business booms and the city people get their share--especially those who are in any way affected by the piano trade.

Fat hogs are also playing an important part in this year's drama of prosperity--in fact they are getting their feet right into the financial trough. At the present price--eight cents a pound, live weight--they have reached a point that is the despair of men whose memory runs back to the time of the American war and other periods of forced prices. In this connection it is amusing to note how little some people care for the cause, so long as they can get good prices. One old Presbyterian elder, who has long since gone to his reward, made his fortune during the Crimean war, and ever after he used to exclaim with heartfelt emphasis on every possible occasion, "I wish there would be another war with Roosha, so the price of wheat would go up." It didn't matter to him how many people were killed or what suffering was endured, so long as he got a fancy price for his wheat. Another worthy of the same period kept his wheat for three years after the war closed hoping to be able to sell it at war prices. The state of the market weighed so heavily on his mind that when he met an acquaintance his invariable form of greeting was: "Isn't the wheat cheap? How are the wife and children?" But to return to hogs. They, too, have undergone a transformation. The old-fashioned swift-footed, long-nosed variety that could reach the third row of potatoes through a snake fence has disappeared--as has the snake fence. The hog of the present day really resembles his portrait in the advertisements in the agricultural papers. He lives a brief life of full-fed inactivity, has a clean pen, plenty of pure water and wholesome chopped feed. If offered the old-fashioned ration of swill, he would no doubt turn up his nose in disgust and ask the farmer to bring him the bill of fare.

Calves and lambs are also in demand with the buyers--they used to be called drovers--and bring good prices. But sheep-raising is not so important a business in this district as it might be. There are a few sheep--prize-winners at that--in the neighbourhood, but the industry is not flourishing, and the good old joke about taking the annual bath at the time of sheep-washing has fallen into disuse. The sheep they have are excellent to look upon. They even surpass the one described by the schoolboy as having "four legs on the under side, one at each corner." Their feet are set far towards the middle, and are so overhung with fatness that if a sheep gets cast on her side she cannot regain her footing, but will die unless found and rescued. So many sheep are lost in this way that farmers who raise them find it necessary to look over their flocks and count them at least twice a day so as to be sure that none of them is missing. But though the sheep have changed, the buyers are still the same as they were in the days of Solomon. Here is a sample deal reported from life. The buyer has just driven up to the barn from the road.

"Good-morning, Jim."

"Good-morning, Bob."

"Awful dry weather we have been having lately."

"It is; but it looks a little like rain this morning."

"Yes, but it has been looking like rain every day for the past couple of weeks, and I have always noticed that when it looks like rain and doesn't, we usually have a long dry spell."

"That's so."

"I hear you have some fat sheep."

"I have, but I don't think I'll sell them just now. Jack Stout was looking at them the other day, but he didn't offer enough for them."

"What did he offer?"

"Three cents a pound."

"Well, that's all they're bringing now."

"Yes. Well, I think I'll keep mine for a while longer. I have nothing else on the pasture since I sold my steers, and I don't think they'll get any cheaper."

"Funny that sheep aren't higher when pork is so dear. I am paying eight cents a pound for hogs just now."

Here followed a conversation on hogs that need not be reported, as it was not to the point. Finally the buyer volunteered:

"I'm making up a carload to-day and I'm a little short. If your sheep are good and fat I don't mind paying three and a quarter for them."

"That isn't much better than Jack's bid. No, I don't think I'll sell them just now."

"Well, I must be going. Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

The farmer stands and watches the buyer as he drives down a lane. When he has gone a few rods he stops and looks back.

"Oh, Jim!"

"Well!"

"I've just been thinking it over, and, though sheep are not worth a cent over three cents a pound, I am in such a fix to-day getting my car filled that I'll pay three and a half."

"When will you want them delivered?"

"At noon to-day."

"All right." The deal is closed and both are satisfied. What an up-to-date comment this makes on Solomon's text: "The buyer saith 'It is naught. It is naught,' but when he goeth his way he boasteth."

Now comes the task of rounding up the sheep, loading them on a waggon, and taking them to a railway station. If the man who first compared voters to a flock of sheep didn't know any more about politics than he did about sheep he should have been waited on by a delegation of farmers and told a few things. Of all the stubborn, contrary, ornery critters to drive, coax, or lead, sheep certainly deserve the mahogany sideboard, or trip to Europe, or whatever it is they offer in popular prize competitions. They follow their leaders, of course, but any fool that starts running in any direction is instantly followed as a leader. And the leaders never seem to have a clear idea of where they want to go. Their one idea seems to be to bolt the convention, and that is a characteristic of reformers rather than of ordinary voters. If the people were at all like sheep the politicians could do nothing with them. The simile is no good. And will some psychologist kindly explain why a man's memory will turn sarcastic on him--when he has almost run his legs off and can feel his lungs red all the way down--and throw up a quotation like this:

"Falstaff: He fled from me like quicksilver. Doll: Ay, and thou followest him like a church;"

or words to that effect. If my motions resembled those of a church, the church must have been hit by a cyclone when its actions were observed. However, the task was finally accomplished and the sheep joined the fat steers, hogs, calves, and lambs in their progress towards the kitchen.

Some farmers in this district have threshed their wheat without putting it in barns or stacks--carrying it from the shocks to the threshing-machines. The grain was then rushed to market, so that advantage might be taken of the high prices. The highest yield reported was of thirty-one bushels to the acre--a return that is highly satisfactory at present prices. All spring crops will be light on account of the late sowing and the continued dry weather. One field of oats was seen that has already turned yellow, as if ripening, without having headed out. But so many things are making for prosperity on the farms this year that few people have any real cause to grumble.

_July 29._--The country has been described from a car window, an automobile, a buggy, a bicycle, and even afoot, so why not from a hammock? It is favourably located with a view of the best the country has to offer. One end is suspended from a little oak that has grown within the memory of man from an acorn dropped by a red squirrel or a predatory small boy. The other end is attached to a crab-apple tree that "casts a generous shade." A gentle breeze is whispering in a near-by clump of oaks and elms--an untouched bit of the original forest. The bees are humming like a city, and the hens are cackling over recent contributions to the world's food supply. A reaper is clacking faintly in the distance, and somehow the hour of ease seems sweeter because of the knowledge that some one is working. A panorama of green corn, oat, and barley fields, brown hay stubble, and yellow wheat in the shock can be seen by merely turning one's head. And around all is a wall of woods still as fresh as in the spring. What more could be asked by any one enamoured of the simple life?

The haying came and went this year as quickly as the express train that needed two men to see it--one to say, "Here she comes," and another to say, "There she goes." One morning the mower started, in the afternoon the rake was busy, and by the end of the next day the hay was all in the mows and lofts. As it was all cut, raked, loaded, and unloaded by machinery, the old back-breaking work of pitching was not in evidence. Still, the work was hard enough, and those who kept at it from early morning till late at night were thankful to have some one else volunteer to do the chores. The haying weather was ideal, plenty of sunshine and a good breeze to cure the hay; but for the first time on record the haymakers were wishing for rain. This section is suffering from a peculiar dry spell that is damaging the spring crops. For some weeks past there have been almost daily indications of rain, but none has come. Storms gather in the west almost daily and then drift away to the south or north. The papers bring reports of heavy rains at every point of the compass, but a strip about thirty miles wide through this part of the province has not been blessed with a decent sprinkle. In some places the corn is wilting through lack of moisture, and all spring crops will be light unless there is a heavy downpour within the next few days. It looks like rain to-day, but the performance of previous days will probably be repeated. Will the weather man kindly explain why other sections are favoured while this one is left desolate? Can it be possible that there is a Jonah living in this neighbourhood? But perhaps it will be as well not to investigate that point.