Corn-Farm Boy

by Lois Lenski

  Mom was right. Nobody could get sentimental over a hog. A calf now was different. A calf was pretty and appealing with its soft eyes and gentle ways. That was why Dick did not want to stay at the cattle pens. Even if they were other people’s calves, he could not bear to see them go.

  A workman came up with a hose. He turned water on and began washing out an empty pen across the alley. He sloshed running water all around everywhere. It was a big job to keep the pens and alleys clean. Although they were cleaned daily, there was always plenty of dirt from hogs going through.

  The first buyer walked away and others came up to Red and gave him bids. Finally, at the highest bid, the hogs were sold. Mom spoke to Dad and said she was taking Margy back to the Exchange building.

  “Now, Dick, you come and help,” said Dad.

  Dick ran over. They drove the hogs out of the pen and down the long alley to the scale house. There they left them to be weighed.

  Dick could not help but feel a pang of regret. That was the last he would ever see of them—the last of old Squeaky. It was the last time, too, he would ever make a pet of a runt. He tried to tell himself that Squeaky had been no pet, that she was no different from the others and that he would never miss her. But at the same time it was an awful thought that Squeaky would be on the slaugher block in an hour’s time, and no telling how soon after that in a refrigerated car all done up in Cellophane packages or in gauzed quarters. He tried to forget all that. It was better to think of the new litters of hogs that had been coming since August—only to be sold next spring, in April.

  “Aw—shoot!” said Dick to himself. “What do I care, anyway! People have been eating hogs since the year one. They’ll keep right on doing it, too.”

  “We’ll go to the Exchange building and get our papers,” said Dad. “We’ll find out what they weigh.”

  “Did you feed them heavily the last two weeks like I told you?” asked Uncle Henry.

  Dick followed slowly behind the men as they returned to the main building. There would be a long time to wait to get the hogs’ papers and the check for the hogs. Dick looked at the hogs in the other pens. There were so many they almost made him dizzy.

  Suddenly he heard a shriek behind him. It was louder than the squealing of the hogs. It sounded familiar. He turned around to look. Whom should he see but Margy! She was running fast on a cross alleyway, terrified and crying at the top of her voice.

  “Margy!” called Dick. “Come here! This way!”

  Margy heard him, stopped and looked, then came over sobbing. Her dress was wet and covered with mud.

  “Where’s Mom?” asked Dick.

  “Back over there somewhere,” cried Margy, pointing vaguely. “I don’t know where. I lost her!”

  “You lost Mom?” said Dick. “Why, that’s impossible.”

  “We both got lost,” explained Margy. “We couldn’t find the way out to the Exchange building and we went back to find you and Dad and Uncle Henry, but the hogs were gone and you weren’t there any more. Mom told me to look down one alley and I did and when I went back she was gone! I can’t find her.”

  Dick took his little sister by the hand. “I’ll find Mom,” he said. “You just can’t see over the fences, that’s all. Stop crying now.”

  Margy began crying louder than ever.

  Dick scolded her. “If you don’t quit that noise, I won’t even look for her. You sound worse than a stuck pig!”

  Margy quieted down to sniffles. Dick walked back a few yards with her. They came on two cats in the alley, licking themselves. Margy stopped to pet them.

  “Oh, here are the cats,” said Margy. “I’d like one of these.”

  Dick laughed. “Don’t be silly, punkin,” he said. “Probably there are rats here and these cats have come to eat them. We’ve got cats enough at home. You know that.”

  They looked up and saw Mom hurrying toward them.

  “Heavenly days!” cried Mom. “What a place! I’ll never come in here again—not if I’m in my right mind.”

  “Did you really get lost?” asked Dick.

  “Well, I got all turned-around,” said Mom. “I couldn’t seem to find my way out. Each time I turned I went in the wrong direction.”

  “You were, too, lost!” said Margy. “You said, ‘Now I know how Margy felt when she was lost in the cornfield.’”

  “Only this place is worse with so many hogs,” said Mom. “All these horrible hogs—black ones and brown ones and white ones and spotted ones! All their snouts poking out between the fence rails and squealing and snorting at me. It was like a bad dream. I had the awfullest feeling of being lost among all these pens of hogs. I wondered if I’d ever get out.…”

  “Why didn’t you ask some one?” said Dick, smiling.

  Mom began to laugh now. “I did ask a man who was shoveling dirt,” she went on, “but he didn’t know his way out either. He mumbled something I couldn’t understand. He just went on shoveling dirt. He looked so black and grimy, I thought, maybe he never does get out. Maybe he just lives here!”

  Dick roared and so did Mom.

  “And just look what he did to my coat and dress,” said Margy. “He took his hose and splashed water and mud on me. He never even looked to see what he was doing.”

  “You’ll have to go out in the sun and get dried off,” said Dick.

  “How do we get out of here?” asked Mom.

  “Come with me,” said Dick. “I’ll show you. If you just keep going in one direction long enough, you’re bound to come out somewhere.”

  They started walking and soon they could see daylight outside. Mom felt better when she saw she was going in the right direction. They came out on the catwalk again and followed it to the stairs. They went down and came into the Exchange building. Margy’s tears were dried now. She forgot about her soiled clothes and they sat down in the lounge.

  “Dad and Uncle Henry will find us here,” said Mom. “It will be easier for them to find us if we sit down and stay in one place.”

  “Look at that man’s boots,” said Margy, giggling. “He’s wearing high heels just like a lady.”

  “He’s a real cowboy from Nebraska, I bet,” said Dick. “He’s got those tight cowboy jeans on and a fancy vest. And look at his ten-gallon hat. He looks just like a movie star.”

  A woman on one side began to talk to Mom. She said she was from Minnesota. Another woman from South Dakota said her farm was part of an Indian reservation. She pointed out groups of Indian women and children in the lounge. “They all raise cattle,” she said. “They truck them in here to sell them.”

  The Exchange building was like a town in itself. Besides offices for the commission firms on various floors, it had a restaurant, barber shop, shoeshine shop, a studio for broadcasting market news and an elevator to the top floor.

  All the people who waited were friendly. A woman on the other side of Mom began to talk to her. She said she was from Nebraska and her husband had sent in a load of sheep. She had a girl of ten beside her.

  “We flew in ourselves,” she added.

  “Flew?” asked Mom. “Do you mean you drove fast?”

  “Oh no,” the woman replied. “We flew in our airplane. We own our own plane. My husband was in the war—he’s a good pilot. It takes us only half an hour to get here. If we drove in our car, it would take all day.”

  Margy stared wide-eyed at the flying girl from Nebraska. Then she whispered to her mother, “She wears blue jeans. She looks just like a plain Iowa girl to me.”

  “Why shouldn’t she?” Mom laughed.

  “We saw one load of cows, a mixed bunch, with some sort of skin disease,” said the woman from Minnesota. “We wouldn’t have cows like that on our place. They won’t bring much.”

  After Wilma and Raymond came back, they all watched the well-fed stockmen come waddling in. They tried to guess how rich they were and whether their wealth was in cattle, hogs or sheep. The men carried papers and notebooks. They slapped other men on the back, calling o
ut, “Hi, pardner!” They talked in loud voices and laughed heartily. Their faces were ruddy from outdoor work.

  Raymond was full of enthusiasm over the fine cattle he had seen.

  “Boy, they are smooth and sleek, fed to a finish,” he said. “Every one in a pen evenly matched, all the same breed and same weight. You never saw such beauties. They’ll bring top-notch prices. The commission men can take one look at them and estimate to a fraction just what they’ll dress down to. I wish Uncle Henry would go in for more cattle and give up this hog business.”

  “Give up the hogs?” said Dick. “Oh no, I hope not.”

  “They’ve got horses out in the yard there so well trained, they can open gates,” Raymond went on. “I’d as soon go out west and live on a ranch. Then I would ride a cow horse and be in the saddle all day.”

  Wilma laughed. “Raymond still wants to be a cowboy and rope cattle.”

  “Just like they do in the movies,” said Dick. “O. K. Let him go. I’ll stay on Dad’s farm and help him with the work.”

  “Those rich cattle buyers have a shoeshine parlor downstairs in the basement,” said Raymond, “with fifteen men who do nothing but polish boots! They pay a lot just to get a good polishing job.”

  “I want a ride on the elevator,” the flying girl from Nebraska was saying.

  Margy heard her. “Do they have corncribs here?” she asked her mother. “That Nebraska girl doesn’t know much. She thinks she can ride on an elevator.”

  “She’s talking about a city elevator,” explained Mom, “not the country kind that takes the corn up to the top of the corncrib. The kind they have here takes people up to the top of this building. You don’t have to walk up the stairsteps. You can ride.”

  “If it’s an elevator to ride on,” said Margy, “I want to ride on it. If she does it, I want to do it, too.”

  “Are you sure you won’t get scared?” asked Mom.

  “I won’t,” said Margy.

  “An elevator ride really means something to a farm kid,” said the Minnesota woman, “even to that one who is used to flying in airplanes.”

  Mom said, “All right then, let’s go.”

  Margy was surprised to see that the elevator was a small room that moved up from the basement and stopped at doors on different floors. She loved to ride. Dick and Wilma went along. On the top floor they looked out and saw the Missouri River beyond the railroad tracks with all the freight cars. Mom pointed out the whole area that had been so badly flooded in the spring. They all rode up and down twice just for the ride. Margy coaxed for more rides when it was time to get off.

  It was noon now, and the run of stock for the day had been sold off. The Exchange building became very crowded. Dad and Uncle Henry appeared and located Mom and the children. Dad proudly waved his check and started for the bank to cash it. The family agreed to meet in the cafeteria downstairs for lunch.

  In the lunchroom, they had to help themselves to food, fill their own trays and carry them to a table. Margy had a hard time deciding what to eat. She wanted a sample of everything—but her tray was not large enough.

  “Do they make you wash your own dishes, too?” she asked.

  Uncle Henry roared with laughter.

  The food was good and the meat portions were generous and well prepared. Raymond studied the border of cattle brands decorating the walls. Dick did not talk and hardly ate.

  “What’s griping him?” Raymond leaned over and asked Wilma.

  “Gee, does he feel sad!” said Wilma.

  “Why?” asked Raymond.

  “He’s mourning for old Squeaky,” said Wilma.

  “That mean old hog?” Raymond laughed.

  Dick heard them. He looked at their plates. “How can you eat meat?” he asked.

  “Why, it’s delicious,” said Wilma. “My pork chop’s so nice and tender.”

  Dick shook his head in disgust. “She eats pork on a day like this!”

  Uncle Henry was pleased with the hog sale. “They averaged two hundred and twenty-five pounds. Not bad! Not bad!” he bragged.

  “How about it, Mark?” asked Mom. “Did you get a good price?”

  “We came within fifteen cents of getting top price,” said Dad, smiling.

  Uncle Henry teased Mom about getting lost in the hog barn. Mom was good-natured and laughed about it. Each time she repeated her adventures, they grew worse and worse. Then she talked about going to the stores.

  After lunch Uncle Henry left and Dad drove uptown. He and the boys took in a western show at the movie house while Mom and the girls went shopping. After the show was over, the girls were still in the stores. Dad was impatient to start for home. At last they came and got in the car.

  Dad drove into the truck route along the Missouri River to get out of town quickly. A procession of empty cars and trucks was leaving the stockyards. But Dad could not drive fast. There seemed to be some sort of obstruction ahead and he stopped. A large black and white bull had somehow escaped from a truck. Tail up in the air, the huge animal made a dash for freedom.

  There the bull stood in the middle of the street, blocking traffic both ways. People on the sidewalks scurried indoors for safety. An impatient bus driver in a city bus loaded with people, blew his horn. But the bull refused to budge, except to lower his head threateningly when any one came near.

  “Gosh! This is exciting!” cried Dick. “What will we do?”

  “We’ll sit right here,” said Dad.

  “Now if I just had my lariat,” said Raymond, “I’d lasso that bull and show him who’s master.” The others laughed.

  “If that bull charged into the crowd or into that bus,” said Dad, “it wouldn’t be very funny.”

  The news had spread quickly back to the stockyard. Two men came dashing up on horseback.

  “Now, watch him!” said Raymond. “Even a vicious bull has real respect for a man on a horse.”

  The men had lariats and soon the stubborn bull was roped, tied to a truck and on its way back to the yards. The bus driver sounded his horn, cars began to move and street activities were resumed as before.

  Soon the city was left behind and the Hoffmans were on their way home again. Wilma had spent her money and now her school wardrobe was complete. She talked about her new coat all the way home.

  “She thinks it’s extra special,” said Raymond, “because it came from the city instead of a small store in a small town. There’s no difference that I can see. They all come from the same coat factory.”

  “Except in price,” laughed Dad. “She just paid a little more.”

  Margy did not talk about her new dress at all. Tired out, she leaned against her mother in the back seat and slept. Once she woke up and said, “I didn’t feel good all day.”

  “That’s because you ate too much,” said Dick.

  “No,” said Margy. “The smell of the city made me sick.”

  Mom and Dad laughed.

  “Home is the best place,” said Dick. “I can’t wait to get back to little—” He was about to say Popcorn, but stopped just in time. Little Popcorn would not be sitting there on the back steps to welcome him any more. “I want to get back to see Buster again,” he added.

  As Dad drove in the lane, Margy sat up and said, “I feel good again, now that I’m home.”

  Chores done, supper over, a tired family was ready for bed.

  CHAPTER XI

  Before Snow Flies

  “It’ll be a big crop,” said Uncle Henry one Sunday in October.

  The whole family had walked out to look over the big eighty. The cornstalks and leaves had begun to turn brown. Soon it would be time to get out the corn picker and harvest the crop. Uncle Henry rubbed his hands together and grinned.

  “That’s mighty fine corn!” he boasted. “It didn’t wash down into the creek either. Now, what you got to say about contouring, Mark Hoffman?”

  “I admit it did the trick,” said Dad. “Charlie Ruden lost half of that west field of his. He ran his rows st
raight up and down the slope. That heavy June rain washed deep gullies between the rows. His corn there won’t be worth picking.”

  “Now our corn,” Uncle Henry waved his arm, “means money in our pockets!”

  “Money in your pocket, maybe,” said Dad, frowning. “Time I’ve paid my loan back to the bank for those cattle I bought, paid all my summer bills, bought winter clothes for the family, fuel for the winter, and counted up the costs of putting in next year’s crop—hybrid corn seed, fertilizer, repairs and upkeep on machinery—there won’t be a penny left in my pocket.”

  Mom chimed in. “We’ll manage to get by, and that’s all,” she said. “It’s an endless circle—work hard all the year and make just enough to give you the necessities and a few comforts, plus enough to put in the crop for next year.”

  “But Bertha,” said Uncle Henry, “you can’t ask for a better crop than that.”

  Mom turned to go back to the house. “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched, Henry Shumaker,” she said. “It’s still out in the field. It’s not picked yet.”

  “You’ll pick this week, won’t you, Mark?” asked Uncle Henry.

  “I’m waiting for a hard enough frost,” said Dad.

  “Don’t wait too long,” said Uncle Henry. “If snow comes and moistens it, you might not be able to pick before spring. I need my money this fall.”

  “O. K.,” said Dad. “We’ll get it in by Thanksgiving—before snow flies.”

  Corn picking began the next week. Dad decided the fields were just moist enough and the corn was just dry enough. In the morning before he left for school, Dick watched his father grease the corn picker. He helped him take out the old piece of barbed wire and put in a new piece on one of the rollers that would pick up the corn. He watched Dad and Raymond start out to the field with it. Raymond had to stay out of school to help.

  The corn picker was a fascinating machine, bigger and more fearsome than a tractor, and more dangerous too. Like a huge dragon it moved across the field and gathered up the rows of corn. At the rear a stream of ears poured out into a wagon, while the shredded stalks fell out on the ground behind. What must it be like to drive one of them? Dick tried to see himself sitting up in Dad’s seat, proudly making the huge thing go. Somehow he could not get the fascination of the machine out of his mind.