A LETTER TO MY DEAR NIECE
^ • _ _ _ I believe that I am fully justified in addressing you in this manner. As you well know, my deceased wife was your biological aunt and she and I were joined together in the Holy bonds of matrimony, according to the laws of God until death did us part. (Believe me I miss her). So I call it a privilege that we are thus united as a family. It may surprise you to learn that I remember your great grandfather, Jacob Oake) Mosier quite well. And why should I not? I was born and grew to manhood about two miles downstream from where he lived. He kept several brood mares and raised some beautiful horses. He also kept a Jack and was a respected breeder of mules. He was not alone. In fact his close neighbor, Max Schropp kept a black percheron stallion and raised, I thought, some beautiful draft horses. The services of his stallion were in demand throughout the community. I remember neighbors passing our place leading a mare to the Schropp farm. They expected that mare to produce a colt which they might eventually use as a draft animal. We just called them horses. Smaller and finer boned horses were bred for saddle stock or perhaps to pull a one horse buggy or spring wagon which required a two horse team. Such horses and vehicles were very common in my earliest memories. I still carry a very vivid picture in my mind. It is of your great grandfather driving a team hitched to a wagon. He passed our place on his way to Tasco. Perched beside him on the seat was your mother. She was probably not old enough to go to school. What causes these brief glimpses of the past to be fixed in the mind? The Mosier farm was considered to be a prosperous one in the community. The afore mentioned Max Schropp, on occasions exchanged work with my dad. At least one year we harvested barley with a header and I was considered big enough to drive the team that pulled the header box. Now what in God's creation was a header box you may ask? Picture a hay rack eight by sixteen feet in dimensions. These, you will remember, were what we hauled hay with when you were a child. A header box used the same running gears and floor but it was boxed on both sides and ends. The left side was about six feet high above the floor and the right was only about three feet high. The ends were sloped so the top rails ran from the top of the high side to the top of the low side. A machine called a header was driven or more properly pushed through the field of standing grain. A sickle at the very front of a twelve foot wide platform cut the heads from the stalk. A reel revolving above the sickle brushed the material onto an endless canvas which in turn moved it to an elevator that delivered it into the low side of the header box. All these moving parts were driven by the turning action of a bull wheel on the machine. A full header crew would consist of six horses pushing the header, two header boxes with a team pulling each one. Each box had a man driving the team and a man with a pitchfork to load the box. A man with a pitchfork stayed on the stack. Good stackers who could build a stack that would shed water were in demand. Sometimes there would be a spike pitcher who stayed at the stack to help unload the box and pitch the wheat or barley heads onto the stack. If there was no spike pitcher then the header box driver and the loader would unload the box while the other box was being loaded. Thus a full crew would include a minimum of ten horses and six or possibly seven men. Is the picture clear? May I say from experience, it was work and the days were long. No missing breakfast here and the water jug was always handy. Work started before breakfast. The horses were brought to the barn and fed grain and they were usually harnessed by daylight. Breakfast followed and soon after the teams were hitched to the machines and the days work was under way. Noon was at least an
hour and half or perhaps a two hour break. Horses were unhitched, fed and watered and the men ate and rested. In any good outfit the horses were cared for first. A man was known by the way he treated his stock. Good men took a lot of pride in their animals. Harvest, as it was called, might last two weeks. If you lived and worked in those times you can better understand the past harvest picnics and celebrations that followed the close of the season. We looked forward to the fun and relaxation. Some men made a living just following the harvest from south to north. They returned year after year to the same farms. The last time that I worked in a header box was nineteen thirty six. I was seventeen and considered myself capable of doing a man's work. Dad consented and I hired out to Uncle Walt Morgan. We used a tractor to pull the header box and the tractor pulled the header also by means of a cable. We had a three man crew. Uncle Walt rode and operated the header, Cousin Ervin drove the tractor and I loaded the box. It was a slow, steady job. Loading the box was more difficult because the material came only in one place and I had to move it to the front and rear. When the box was pulled by a separate team the driver could help by changing the place of delivery. It was a very steady job. I could rest while the barge was pulled to the stack yard and again while we returned to the header. Harvest lasted a part of three weeks and I was paid the handsome sum of two dollars per day. As soon as harvest was over we started threshing. Henry Ochs had a machine. A chain type feed was placed between two stacks. It fed the material into the threshing machine. Four men pitched to the machine. I thought harvest was work but this was more so. I would hope that the machine might need to stop for oh! just a few minutes. Later that same season I hauled bundles to Willis Toothaker's machine. By the time school started that fall I was well seasoned but I had enough money to buy my books and clothes. It was a good feeling. It would be truthful to say, the work was hard but remember, we were accustomed to it The following summer I worked for Harry Minium near Morland. We used a Baldwin combine and I drove the tractor that pulled it. This was child's play compared to harvesting the old way. It would be more than ten years before I worked in the harvest again. In nineteen fifty one I helped cut wheat on this place where I now live. I look forward to harvesting another crop.