The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT By William E, Bohn In the Good Old Thrashing' Days Down here in Delaware, where I have my happy home, there is just now a lot of excitement about a stationary steam engine. A...
...The engine which has received so much entertaining publicity is not very old...
...Most of the wheat on the Evans farm had already been cut by a modern combine, but eight acres had been left for the show...
...When I was a boy—I mean in 1883 or 4 or 5—"thrashing-day" was one of the great occasions of the farm year...
...After the trial run was ended and the dusty, black-faced minions who had built the stack had finally got the dirt off their faces and the tickle out of their noses, Mrs...
...We depended upon our noble friend, the horse...
...Edward F. Evans, who lives in Kent County and seems to have plenty of imagination as well as a good farm and some ready cash, instead of buying an old-fashioned automobile, invested his money in the sort of engine which was formerly used to operate threshing machines...
...Then the wonderful mechanics who traveled with the machine would set up the horse-power contraption...
...But when cooperation was required he just naturally got together with his neighbors and traded work for work—and any chump who didn't pitch in and help was a so-and-so...
...The new owner flies his own plane and is obviously the sort of man who can deal sympathetically with any sort of mechanism...
...Evans provided a suitable feast...
...What beef stew...
...We are told that others like it were in use 35 years ago...
...What chicken-and-dumplings...
...And that meal...
...To these bars the horses were hitched, and a boy took his place at the center with a long whip...
...Out in Ohio, where I contributed my farm work, cider was the favorite drink, and it did a good deal to inspire the jokes and brighten up the repartee...
...I got to thinking about these memories of "thrashing" because it seemed to me peculiar that anyone should get all pepped up about operating a "thrashing machine" by steam power...
...The American farmer is always represented as an independent, go-it-alone operator...
...It had an atmosphere and meaning which, as far as I know, have never been mentioned or explained...
...In practically no time at all the yellow straw and chaff were spouting out of the long, swaying pipe to be fashioned into a stack by men and boys who could hardly be seen in the golden cloud which surrounded them...
...It is true that he could—and can—do a lot of things by and for himself...
...And there was no lack of social overtones...
...The old puffing, smoke-belching source of energy has been put into prime condition...
...There always was sure to be a few lusty bachelors among the "thrashers"—and the prettiest girls in the neighborhood would just naturally offer their services to help the hostess...
...Thrashing" was a prime social event...
...On the day when the old puffer was to go into action, 300 folks came to applaud its performance...
...Now when I was a boy we did not depend upon any such recent contraption for power...
...All of this has set old memories to putting on a veritable movie in my mind...
...This noble old source of power has been used for a good many years to operate a little sawmill which went from place to place and cut up logs in the woodlots of farmers who were still sufficiently independent to produce their own lumber...
...It was a sort of merry-go-round with bars extending from a central pivot...
...A pair of fine, stout animals pulled the "separator" through our "big gate" and up the hill to the barn...
...If the ground happened to be soft, it was a hard pull, but they always made it...
...These, then, were loaded on hayracks and hauled to what used to be called the "thrashing machine...
...We had no ice cream for dessert, but that apple pie would make any other sweet look like a poor relation...
...The "thrashing" of grain took about a dozen men, and there was never the least difficulty about securing as many as were required...
...Evans bought the engine last year and thereby has attained at least statewide fame...
...And, of course, the thin stream of grain trickling out of the inconspicuous spout at one side of the "separator" was being carried away in 120-pound sacks by strapping boys who were having the time of their lives...
...Every housewife owed it to her husband to excel her neighbors...
...The word was given, the horses started and from morning till noon and throughout the afternoon those faithful creatures would plod round and round and thus furnish the required power...
...A certain enterprising farmer...
...An old "binder" cut this residuary field of golden grain and sent the bundles slithering across the wide platform to be set up in carefully capped "shocks" by the men who followed after...
...As I looked on I often wondered why they never kicked the whole thing to pieces and made a run for freedom...
...The sharp old whistle blew an inspiriting blast, the engine started, the long belt flapped, the band-cutter flashed his knife and the first bundles went sliding down the gaping maw...
...And, apparently, he has no objection to a little modest publicity...
Vol. 42 • September 1959 • No. 32
