The Worm Forgives the Plough

by John Stewart Collis

  So I went into the barn and sat down. It was a large barn, full of sacks of all sorts and for all purposes, some on the floor, some filled with artificial and others with corn. I saw more than one grain-grinder, and there was an engine with an extremely high funnel. One of the grinders had a good traditional air about it, for imprinted on it were the words – ‘Patronized by Her Gracious Majesty the Queen, the late Prince Consort, and His Serene Highness the Viceroy of Egypt’. I sat down on one of the sacks, feeling very low, wondering what on earth I was doing here. I gazed round at the sacks, at the engine, at His Serene Highness, and out through the door into the paddock in the middle of which was a pool of water, to the left the stable, and straight ahead to a long shed in which were two wagons, a tractor, a drill, a binder, and some miscellanea. It was cold and raw, a drizzle coming down from the unbroken grey.

  Here I remained for nearly an hour. Though not an inspiring hour, it saved my situation, for I was recovering and no longer felt that movement would undo me. So when the boss arrived and I had explained that I had missed the carter, I was ready for a job. There was a wagon waiting to go out and I was told to get a load of hay. Did I know how to use a hay knife? I was asked, and had to reply in the negative – an annoying start. I joined the boy whom I had met earlier and we went along up a track, past several large fields, and across a down till we reached the hay-rick. We did not use the hay knife but took the hay from the top. My experience had been solely with a cart and I had never loaded a wagon, and I was surprised at the amount of stuff that one could put on to it. And when it came to fastening a rope round it I did not go about the fixing of it in the right way, and it was accomplished deftly by the boy who seemed very amiable. We brought the load down then and deposited it in the dairy.

  The afternoon was spent in getting more loads and putting them in the stable-loft. This time I had a new companion, a young man called Dick, about twenty. He was very pleasant and friendly – an opinion I was never to change. We used the hay knife this time, an instrument which I found needed a greater physical effort than any other I am familiar with. One of these days they will introduce a hay knife like a bread knife with teeth, let us hope. A haystack is simply a huge loaf for feeding cattle, and is cut just as one cuts an ordinary loaf, in slices. Not hacked away in bits and pieces. A half-cut stack should present a nice perpendicular wall on the cut side – then the rain won’t hurt it.

  Dick said that he had found hay very difficult at first, and still didn’t like dealing with it (I have yet to find the labourer who finds it easy). He didn’t make the slightest attempt now or at any other time to show off or to show me how to do a thing, or get a rise out of me, or put me right. That was his nature. It was also due to the fact that he did not like agricultural work and took no pride in it. He had been forced into agriculture – as so many cases – simply for the convenience of his parents. There were many other jobs he would have preferred, perhaps an engineering one of some sort. In the reaction caused today by the insolence, the folly, and the greed of many townsmen, there is a tendency for writers on country themes to assume that the countryman alone is splendid, the townsman a poor specimen. This view can be overdone. A man may loathe agriculture, have no love for the earth and no reverence for it, and yet be a superior human being to an ordinary countryman. In the same way it is superficial to suppose that the man who has dealings with animals, with sheep or cows or horses, is thereby more human or humanized than the man dealing solely with machines. The latter may be and often is more fully a human being than the former, who may be and often is most inhuman, callous, violent, and cruel.

  2 Unromantic View of Agriculture

  I continued on this sort of job for some days, either loading and unloading hay or spreading straw for the heifers. But my companion now was not Dick. It was the carter. He was a small man with a peculiar kind of stumping walk as if his legs were in some degree mechanical. His lower lip either hung down or closed over his upper lip. His tiny pale blue eyes glinted out from a red face. He spoke no word. He said neither good morning nor good evening. He answered no questions. He never said where we were going nor what we were about to do. I found this trying, as I did not know that he was nearly as uncommunicative with everyone else. I thought that he harboured a special detestation for myself. And as a matter of fact, he did. But I did not realize to what extent this was true till one day when we were hitching a horse to a wagon and I was being slow with the chains on my side, he dashed round, fuming and hissing in a remarkable manner, snatched the chains out of my hand, connected them himself, and said that he would rather work by himself than with a blank like me. Again, we were fetching harrows one day from a field. I handed one up to him the wrong way round. He took it and flung it on the ground, muttering – ‘I don’t know why my old man keeps me!’ I never knew when this sort of thing might happen, especially as it was never very clear what we were about to do next, and I am slow in the uptake in practical matters. Thus at any moment he might break out and wonder why his old man kept him (in view of the fact that the old man, i.e. the boss, thought fit to employ me).

  Thus these early days were no picnic.

  This carter was a man whose bite was worse than his bark. In fact he didn’t bark at all, he only bit – suddenly. It was not long before I met the man on this farm whose bark was worse than his bite – the shouter, ‘the man with the iron bellows’ as Dick called him, the man everyone had to treat with circumspection. This was Robert, the shepherd.

  Having loaded up a wagon of hay we went over to a field one day in which the sheep were being folded. Here we deposited it for the benefit of the sheep (I did not previously know that sheep ate hay). My dog was accompanying me as usual, but as we arrived in the field a great shout went up, for the shepherd’s dog and mine had collided, and so I heard for the first time this man’s famous voice. At the time I didn’t know it was famous, and that his shouting at his dog all the time, whatever it was doing and wherever he went, was accepted by everyone as a normal and recognized phenomenon. But hearing it for the first time under these circumstances, I thought a crisis had occurred. However, this didn’t last long, and I was soon standing beside the shepherd who was ready for a quiet chat as he weighed me up.

  He was an elderly man. In his youth he must have been uncommonly handsome. He was still very good-looking, strikingly so; completely rustic, his features, nose, cheekbones, set of eyes were yet at the same time aristocratically fine-shaped. Nor was this a passing fancy of mine; it struck me later whenever I caught him in profile on a rick. His eyes also, a pale-washed blue, were beautiful, except when they flared up in some outburst. And as I have already observed, his voice left nothing to be desired.

  We chatted a little. We talked sheep. He said that there was a lack of milk in some of the ewes for no good reason, even when there were twins, and that when a lamb had to be put to a ewe that had lost one of its own lambs it was necessary sometimes to put the skin of the dead lamb over the former. Trying to figure this out, I went on with the carter to the next item on the agenda which consisted of loading up some straw from a very tight rick. I couldn’t get the stuff out easily, but the carter could! He dug his prong in and hauled out absolutely huge bundles – indeed, never before or since have I seen a more skilled or more powerful loader than this man.

  I did not always work with him. There were five horses in the stable, and I frequently took out a horse and cart or wagon alone, either to distribute straw on the fields for the heifers, or to fill up from a dunghill and distribute it. It had not occurred to me before that so much work is done on a farm which is merely a question of preserving the status quo. Work going ahead which is not in terms of tillage or planting or harvesting, but just keeping things going. Yet of course a dairy farm’s work consists chiefly in simply preserving the status quo.

  April came in very coldly, and remained so for some time with a strong east wind blowing. The peaceless, ceaseless wind – how I hate it! If one were to give feelings to Na
ture, one would say that when the sun comes out she breaks into a smile, and that when the wind blows she is in a temper. Certainly I always feel the wind as a bad-tempered thing, especially a cold one, and my mind contracts in resisting it, and I can enjoy no pleasant, expansive thoughts when ruffled by its peaceless, ceaseless wave. And during the long afternoons in it on this job I would sometimes fall again into low moods, again wondering whether I had lost my way. ‘Thin, thin the pleasant human noises grow, And faint the city gleams . . . ’ I would long for that city and a clean warm room. I will arise and go now, I would say to myself most unpoetically, and build me a town, far, far away from Nature and all her winds, where everything shall be artificial and where no man shall be comfortless nor cold for evermore!

  I have no objection whatever to standing on a dunghill. There is no place where I am more content to stand. But for how long? That’s the question. The dunghill today is rightly celebrated by poet, by prophet, and by priest. It is numbered amongst the highest riches of a land. I never feel better employed than when dealing with one. Thus engaged I can qualify for the approval of Sir Albert Howard and the tributes of statesmen, while also providing a perfect subject for a wood-cut. True. But consider the reality. It is 2 p.m. There are three and a half hours to go. There is an icy wind. Also a drizzle. Three is no one to talk to, and if anyone does turn up there will be nothing to talk about. Though I am ‘close to the earth’ the dunghill soon ceased to be anything but an object, heavy and clogging. One wonders ‘what is the time?’ Alas – only 3.15!

  3 ’E

  A farmer is called by his men either ‘the boss’ or ‘the guvnor’ or ‘the master’ (now out of date), or ‘the old man’ (regardless of age), or more often simply ‘he’. He is never called ‘the chief’.

  At this farm he was sometimes called ‘the boss’, often enough ‘the old man’, generally, ‘He’, or, more properly, ‘’E’, and sometimes merely ‘the Van’. He used a second-hand butcher’s van for getting about the premises and carrying oil and what not from one scene of operation to another. So one would hear – ‘Look out, there’s the van!’ or ‘I didn’t see no van’ when his whereabouts was doubtful. But on the whole he was designated simply as ‘’E’ – ‘’E’s coming!’ It is as ’E that I think of him, and as ’E that I shall refer to him.

  He was a man somewhere in the fifties. His eyes were impressive in their mildness, but his mouth was large and ugly, partly concealed by a stumpy moustache. You could recognize him a long way off by his walk. He took huge strides, head bent slightly down, like a man measuring a cricket pitch. That walk was very characteristic. There was no dawdling nor diddling about with him: he never strolled; he never looked round quietly at the scene; he never took out a pipe nor smoked a cigarette, any more than he would be likely to drink a glass of beer, pat a dog, or say good night, good morning, or thank you. He was on the go the whole time, as if his life depended on it. When he was at all excited, or indeed when giving instructions, he waved his hands about almost like a man catching invisible balls. Though sturdy to a degree, he was obviously a man of nervous temperament.

  He came of a farming family for generations back. He had climbed that famous ‘farming ladder’ by the only way it can be climbed – by ceaseless energy, relentless toil, and knowledge of the job. Starting with nothing, he now ran this large farm with full equipment. Men who rose by their own efforts in farming between 1900 and 1940, and did not fail during the agricultural depression, had to be unusual men. Whatever else ’E was he was not usual, and not small.

  Having adopted a certain pace – a terrific pace – he meant to keep it up. He neither would nor could slow down a bit. ‘’E’ll break up one of these days’ they would say at intervals. He did not intend to lose a minute if he could help it – for time was money to him as certainly as to any business man. An atmosphere of hurry and almost of crisis prevailed whenever he was around; and he generally was around, for he was his own foreman. He was also one of his own labourers, so to speak, for he joined in anything and everything, no job was beneath him. In this way he got a tremendous amount of work out of his men, as he set the pace, and each person felt that he had his eye on him – and he had.

  We assembled in the yard in the morning at 7 a.m. There was no question of a good morning any more than of a good evening at the end of the day, nor any degree of cheerfulness. Life was too earnest for that. Orders would be given, and all dispersed in their several directions as quickly as possible out of his sight.

  4 Full-scale Threshing

  We did not always disperse in different directions, of course. There were combined operations even at this time of year. Quite a lot of threshing still remained to be done. (I used to imagine that threshing was an after-harvest affair, but bits of it are sometimes still waiting to be done in the following May!)

  A corn-rick is a bank in which the farmer has lodged about a hundred pounds. He draws the money when he feels inclined. But to get the cash out, as everyone knows, is a rather elaborate affair. I was to learn all about threshing at this farm.

  The thresher is a machine which certainly holds the attention. Like a clear thought or a solved riddle, it looks perfectly obvious. And of course every invention is a clear Thought: every hard, concrete thing – chair, table, engine – was once as insubstantial as an idea. The threshing machine is informed with one comprehensive principle, namely to shake a series of trays with holes in them, which are cunningly placed one above the other. And the outfit does shake to such purpose that each sheaf falls into six separate pieces; three kinds of grain – good, less good, and poor – flow out of exits at the rear; straw straggles out of a line of cradles in perpetual bobbing motion at the front; chaff pours out of a hole at the side; and at the bottom there is excreted the remaining bits and pieces from ear and stalk which are grouped under the term cavings. Such is the outline. As for the number of belts, I have never been able to count them without getting muddled. It is sufficient to say that here is a useful machine. Here is the right thing in the right place. Anyone ‘against machines’ should be invited to look at a thresher until it occurs to him that what he is against is simply the wrong thing in the wrong place. He will find few such things on the land, however many he may find in the town.

  Plenty of time was spent in assembling the tackle – ‘the menagerie’ as they called it. Much pulling and shoving about. First the thresher itself goes between two ricks – and when at last it is in the right spot it must be exactly level. A tractor (with special wheel for the purpose) is belted to it at the rear, while an elevator for depositing the straw is placed in front, with its own engine at its side.

  Nine of us assembled to deal with this process of separation. The carter and Dick stood on it, on its deck, by the side of its hatchway or mouth into which the sheaves were let down, the carter performing that office, while Dick cut the string that held the sheaf together. Robert, the shepherd, stood under the elevator to make a rick with the straw deposited at his feet. ’E and myself got on to the now unthatched corn-rick to deal out the sheaves. Harold, normally the tractor-driver, stood at the rear to deal with the sacks for grain placed under the exit pipe-mouths of the thresher. Jimmy, the lorry-driver and mechanic, presently appeared for loading up. In the centre of the ground was a land girl to sweep up the cavings. That is generally considered too few for the job, since three or even four people are useful on the corn-rick, and two or even three are helpful on the straw-rick. Nine was all we could muster. A small staff for a farm of this size. The explanation is that the unit of work had greatly increased owing to the war, two hundred extra acres of downland having been ploughed up, while the housing accommodation did not increase in proportion.

  The tractor was started up and we got going. My job was to feed ’E, who passed on the sheaves to Dick. This was my first experience of unpacking this tight parcel. I thrust my prong in to take out a sheaf, but nothing came. I couldn’t move it. ‘Let’s have ’em!’ said ’E. But at first I found great
difficulty in letting him have them. With the beginner’s instinct for starting by doing the wrong thing, I tried to take them out in a haphazard kind of manner, and found myself attempting to move the one I was half-standing on. A rick has been built in layers, and unless you unbuild in layers also you are lost, and so I had to improvise a technique for this immediately, and kept improvising techniques all day (as a matter of fact I have still no rule of thumb for this).

  It was a windy day, the wind coming against us on the rick, so that the prickly dust flew into our faces, our eyes, and down our necks. By the middle of the afternoon I could hardly see out of either eye, while the stuff that had got down my neck, again owing to faulty buttoning, made me feel as if I were wearing an ascetic’s hair-shirt. As the hours passed I occasionally glanced blurringly round to find a continually changing scene. Away to the left a yellow cliff had grown up, the straw stack, with a yellow mound beside it, the cavings; and over there at the other end bulging sacks now existed, filled with grain. And as other things rose, so I sank. At first high above the show, I was steadily sinking as I shovelled away my pedestal. But there was still a lot to be picked out and I coundn’t believe I would ever get it all up this day – though it was known that ’E wanted to finish it. Another two hours passed and there was still some to deal with. Everyone by this time had turned chimney-sweep black, while the carter, not having shaved, and standing in the dustiest of all positions, offered an appearance that recalled earlier periods in the world’s history. At length we had sunk to the very ground.