Little Egypt Heritage Articles Stories of Southern Illinois © Bill Oliver 2 July 2006 Vol 5 Issue: #19 ISBN: pending Osiyo, Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen of Little Egypt Grandpa Oliver said that farming was too hard work for him. So he went to work for the railroads, eventually working at a railroad processing company. This man who said farming was too hard would carry a railroad tie on each shoulder to load them onto or off trains. Farms always fascinated me, even though I did agree with Grandpa – farming was hard work. It was up at 4:30 am [I got to sleep a half hour later than Uncle Tim and Aunt Em], and you didn’t get to eat breakfast until past seven or eight, after chores. Then it was out to do the days work. Lunch was brought to us and we ate where we were. Dinner was maybe six or seven in the evening. Time for a little reading and it was off to bed. Four thirty came early. <grin> I thought about this some this week as I kept reminding myself that my energy lately is not as it was. So, if aging is not for sissies neither is anemia. Uncle Tim Bevister used Belgians. He would say that “soon will come the day when trucks and tractors will demote the horses as the power source. And, that will be a sad day.” I loved those horses of his. I would climb up on their backs and lay down as comfortable as you please. Out in mid Nebraska, Great Great Grandpa Karl and his sons used mules. Once when I visited my Nebraska family I asked why they used mules. I was always told that they were very stubborn. One of my Nebraska cousins would quote a verse from a poem: “If I were a sculptor, I’d cut in hard stone A monument unto the mule. I would try thus in some way to atone To the beast that’s considered a fool.” My cousins taught me that mules were a pleasure to walk behind while plowing. They said, “... perfect obedience, perfect coordination, never tired.” Apparently horses were prone to kickings, bucking, runaways, getting in more wrecks than modern automobiles. My Nebraska cousins seemed to have mules of a larger size than those that pull Canal Boats full of tourists in our Ohio canals. Well, the steam engine replaced mules and horses as the King of Power. Uncle Tim would hitch up a threshing machine behind an old steam engine. He didn’t call it a thresher, but a “pea huller”. Well, not only did that old steam tractor, in the proper season, do the oats and wheat, the cowpeas and navy beans, but was used for sawmill work. Gas tractors followed soon after the development of the automobile. Uncle Tim often said he was “home schooled”, but he believed in education. He said that the agriculture courses in school were teaching crop rotation and by the time I was helping [summer camp for a couple of weeks] on his farm he was preaching contour farming. By the time I came along radio was a decade old, and we listened to the “farm” report and the weather while we ate breakfast. My Illinois cousins talked about the tools necessary for the average farmer. They included the moldboard plow, a cultivator, a disc, a harrow, a drag, a grain drill, a hayrake, a mower, a manure spreader, and, of course, a wagon. Oh, yes, there were hand tools also – hoes, post-hole diggers, shovels, saws, forks [the pitching kind], and boots. Newly cleared land was the toughest to farm. All the stumps had to be plowed around. The Marine Corps obstacle courses were not any better. Some stumps were grubbed, some dynamited, but mostly left to decay over a few years. Corn and strawberry patches were always present even if the main crop was wheat or beans or whatever. Though it seemed to me that corn fields were pretty large, especially at harvest times. Guess it was sweet corn that was in patches. Along the edges near the road or around the fences, Uncle Tim would take his “hand” scythe and cut the “hay”. Uncle Tim would say “waste not want not, besides clean fence rows look better.” I remember following behind and piling the “hay”. I think we used it on the banks of ditches to retard erosion. In my city home we had ice boxes. Out on every farm I’ve visited, be it in Ohio, Illinois or Nebraska, refrigeration was a matter of choice – cellars or springhouses. Also, such as butter could be kept cool by suspending it on a cord in the well. Even in the 1930s when my experiences were being made, many farms did not yet have electricity. Thus, such labor saving devices such as washers, sweepers, irons, etc were only in the Sears catalog, which was read in the “library” out back. Water was precious. After using buckets to wash in [by several folks] the water was not just tossed away. Aunt Em used it in her garden. She sure grew good vegetables and beautiful flowers. After a “fun” summer, I might return to Uncle Tim’s farm for a day on the weekends. There I helped with shucking corn. But, what I remember most was the harvest tables. Every time I think about those gatherings of people to help harvest, I’m reminded of the Old Dutch Tea Table in Icabod Crane, by Washington Irving. Makes my mouth water to this day. Here I will let you conger from your memories the multiple saw horses and wood sheets covered with white linen and every food produced on a community’s farm. Oh, by the way, Uncle Tim wasn’t a slave driver – he let his grand nephew off between three and four in the afternoon to go fishing or whatever. My what energy we had as eight or ten year olds. Happy and Safe Fourth of July, the celebrated birthday of our nation. e-la-Di-e-das-Di ha-wi nv-wa-do-hi-ya nv-wa-to-hi-ya-da. (May you walk in peace and harmony) and Wado, Bill -=- PostScript: Other sites worth visiting: PostScript: = = = = http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/SOIL http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ILMASSAC http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ne/state/BillsArticles/LittleEgypt/intro.html