﻿T-Bone Slim Sees Our Harvest lands And Harvest Hands 

The marshall in Bird Island confides to me “the Major had an inspiration last night to cut off the feeding of hungry harvest hands.”
“Pay no attention to him, my dear marshall. The same thing happened many times before. Down in Pipestone the Mayor there had a similar nightmare, and the result of it was several breakings and enterings which the press was good enough to report. So, I would advise you, Mr. Law, don’t stop those begging youngsters, because they are very impulsive and if they get hungry enough will raid the bureau drawers, and it will be a black mark against your protection . . . I think the Mayor is trying to make work for you.”
“Is that right,” growns the marshall. “Do you really think so, Slim . . . and me on the verge of a nervous breakdown?”
“I sure do, John, and I’ve noticed how your hand shakes.That comes from eating these coal tar products right here in a wheat country—alum, ammonia, and phosphates in your white bread —and if you listen to the mayor you will be a physical wreck; you’re on the verge of scurvy right now, and what you really ought to do is go out on a farm for a week or so, where you can get lots of milk and eggs.”
“But, Slim, pitching bundles is kind of tough graft, and it’s only two bucks and a half a day.”
“There you go again, money, money, money. What’s money compared to health—forget all about these patent silverene beer coils the saloons are putting in (five saloons to one grocer) and go out with these farmers and drink lots of milk, even if you have to go milk the cow after supper to get it.”

Over in Renville, Minn., they have a brand new concrete pavement to shade the watermains. The necessity of the pavement is obvious on a windy day. Without it the farmers could not keep their eyes open for dust, and who is there that can say the farmer does not need to keep his eyes open when dealing with businessmen? Farmers and harvest hands of course will have to pay for that pavement.

A harvest idyll:
It had rained the day before and the harvest hands were sent to shock corn. Owing to the formation of the land the cornfield lay beyond the hill and was quite invisible from even the upstairs window—and the good farmer’s wife had no periscope. Television was still a thing undreamed of, and consequently unheard of—you know what I mean, no one had popped off about it.
A great peace permeated the souls of the harvest hands, conscious of the fact that the farmer’s eye was blocked by a hill—a hill is a big piece of dirt to have in an eye.
Restfulness possessed these toil-worn hands, and they sat down in a shock to devise ways and means to improve the lot of the farmer. Considerable disagreement developed between them as to the best methods, and the obdurate hands of the clock forged onward and upward. The sun too rose higher and higher, but the only sign of life was the concerted move of the pair to get on the shock’s shady-side. Be it said for these sincere harvest hands, the farmer had ridden them nigh unto death eight days, night and day, 110 in the shade—for three dollars a day, and was at the moment figuring on charging them for board, such as it was.
But unfortunately for these boys they were not invisible from the neighbor’s house, and, sitting in the shock, they loomed quite large in the jealous eyes of that righteous soul. Now it happened that each of these neighbors hated each other with an undying hate, and both had included in their nightly prayers the wish that lightning would strike the other before morning—not wholly on the grounds of getting rid of the other but, as every farmer knows, where there is lightning there may be rain—a thing not unwelcome in this drought age—a sort of double blessing. (Hoggishness I call it.)
But harvest hands in a shock! That was just too much for the farmer to bear—even though they were “neighbor’s harvest hands.” Quivering in every nerve he bounced to the party line and rung up his neighbor: “What kind of harvest hands you got,” he hissed through his sparse teeth, “sitting in the shock all morning?”
Ah Romans, and fellow patricians, co-operation at last! As much as he hated his neighbor, he haled harvest hands more.
Hate isn’t going Lo get us anything. It divides our attention and makes us see double. Love blinds us to the business before the house. Let us organize. In other words, let’s come back to earth.