A Crossroads Resource

Unit VII: What, Then, Is This American? ca. 1865 - 1900

Question/Problem 4: What was the West like for miners, cattlemen, and homesteader?

Homesteaders' Reading #1
Reaping generally came about the 20th of July, the hottest and driest part of the summer, and was the most pressing work of the year. It demanded early rising for the men, and it meant an all day broiling over the kitchen stove for the women. Stern, incessant toil went on inside and out from dawn until sunset, no matter how the thermometer sizzled. On many days the mercury mounted to ninety-five in the shade, but with wide fields all yellowing at the same moment, no one thought of laying off. A storm might sweep it flat, or if neglected too long, it might 'crinkle.'

Our reaper in 1874 was a new model of the McCormick self-rake.... True the McCormick required four horses to drag it but it was effective. It was hard to believe that anything more cunning would ever come to claim the farmer's money. Weird tales of a m machine on which two men rode and bound twelve acres of wheat in ten hours came to us, but we did not... believe these reports. On the contrary we accepted the-self-rake as quite the final word in harvesting machinery and cheerily bent to the binding of sheaves with their own straw in the good old time-honored way.

No task save that of 'cradling' surpassed in severity 'binding on a station.' It was a-full-grown man's job, but every boy was ambitious to try his hand, and when at fourteen years of age I was promoted from 'bundle boy' to be one of the five hands to bi nd after the reaper, I went to my corner with joy and confidence....

I was short and broad-shouldered with large strong hands admirably adapted for this work, and for the first two hours, easily held my own with the rest of the crew, but as the morning wore on and the sun grew hotter, my enthusiasm waned.... My breakfast had been ample, but no mere stomachful of food could carry a growing boy through five hours of desperate toil. Along about a quarter to ten, I began to scan the field with anxious eye, longing to see my sister Harriet and the promised luncheon basket.

Just when it seemed that I could endure the strain no longer she came bearing a jug of cool milk, some cheese and some deliciously fresh fried-cakes. With keen joy I set a couple of tall sheaves together like a tent and flung myself down flat on my back in their shadow to devour my lunch.... It took resolution to rise and go back to my work, but I did it, sustained by a kind of soldierly pride.

At noon we hurried to the house, surrounded the kitchen table and fell upon our boiled beef and potatoes with such ferocity that in fifteen minutes our meal was over.... Then came a heavenly half-hour of rest on the cool grass in the shade of the trees.. . but alas!-- this 'nooning,' as we called it, was always cut short by father's word of sharp command, 'Roll, out boys!'.... Again the big white jugs were filled at the well, the horses, lazy with food, led the way back to the field, and the stern contest began again.

From Hamlin Garland, A Son of the Middle Border (New York: MacMillan Co., 1923), pp. 148-151.

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