PADUTCH-LIFE-L Archives

From: "Vee L. Housman" <>
Subject: 63-The Hay Harvest
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 13:49:02 -0400

HAY HARVEST

Harvest time is here again, and in a few days we'll hear the
rattling of the reapers. Years ago harvest time was a great pleasure
and a joy, because strangers of all kinds visited the farm and
provided an opportunity to talk to something other than the horses
and the oxen. Strangers would drop by to help out with their
scythes. They could cut through the thickest weeds as if it were an
act of joy.

Harvest time was filled with exciting and curious events.
Under a big shade tree at the end of the hay field stood a large,
wooden water barrel. Whenever its lid was opened, hay hoppers
darted into its coolness as if they too wanted to drink. Alongside,
under a wisp of hay, was the good old whiskey bottle. And wasn't
that real good stuff! Whew! It was the stuff that went all the way
to your legs and gave you strength--nothing like the rat-proof rat
poison which nowadays burns off your shoe soles and tears off your
toe nails like a lightning storm. And didn't it ever make you sweat?
Ah yes! And, oh my!

Ten o'clock snack and the noon meal! Talk about
one-thousand-dollar pianos and five-thousand-dollar organs! That
old dinner bell on the house, which didn't cost more than a dollar
and a half, was more music to my ears than the whole shootin
match in their highfalutin church. And did we ever have an
appetite! Everything tasted so good, and now I'd build fence for a
whole day for just one more piece of the cherry pie or ginger cake,
just like Mother used to bake.

In the evenings we had good times. We'd party late and rise
early to start work without even thinking of weariness. A half
dollar a day was good pay, and the people lived better than they do
now. Of course, not everyone could afford a piano or an organ for
the young girls to drum on while mother milked the cows, but the
girls had qualities which are no longer easy to find. They were
strong and plump and weren't overcome by fainting spells every
twenty-four hours. At least they didn't tie their waists off with hay
twine until they looked like skinny wasps. The boys were so
grateful for the farm life that not all wanted to be lawyers or
doctors. Nowadays, as soon as they can recite the multiplication
table, our children want to leave the farm and move into towns to
weigh sugar, to play around as counter clerks, and to wear dress
gloves and high collars.

Yes, the good old days are gone. They went with the grain
scythe and the sickle. Nowadays the farmer mostly manages his
farm. The hard labor is done through machinery. The reaper does
the mowing, the hayrake rolls it into rows, and the hayfork lifts it
up into the barn. Hay harvesting begins on a Monday morning and
by Saturday afternoon it's all over. By three o'clock the farmer will
be sitting on the long porch of the Hullaheck saloon waiting for
someone to pass with an invitation to drink.

The other day I and Billy Bixler were just discussing all this,
and we came to the conclusion that we'd call a mass meeting of the
workers in Rabbit Mountain and declare a strike. We would be
willing to work for a dollar a day for any farmer who guaranteed a
crock full of licker at its usual resting place. It'd be two and a half
dollars a day if we were forced to provide for our own.

* * *

Note: This collection of Boonastiel stories was written by H. A.
Harter in the original Penna-Dutch dialect and were published in the
Keystone Gazette, Bellefonte, PA, between 1894 and 1904. They
were translated and transcribed by Bob James of Alaska and they
are being posted to this PADUTCH-LIFE mailing list with his
permission.

This thread:

• 63-The Hay Harvest by "Vee L. Housman" <>