Haying While the Sun Shines

by Mrs. A. J. Wilder. Mansfield, Missouri.

One of the neighbors needed some help in the hay harvest. Being too busy to go himself, he called a town friend by telephone and asked him, if possible, to send out some one to work thru haying. Mansfield has made a beautiful shady park of the public square in the center of the town and it is the gathering place for those who have idle time on their hands. Everyone enjoys it, the busy man with just a few idle minutes as well as the town loafers who, perhaps, have a few busy minutes now and then. It seemed like a very good place to look for a man to help in the hay field, so here the obliging friend went.

"Any of you fellows want a job?" he asked of a group resting in the shade. "Yes," said one man. "I do." "Work on a farm?" asked the friend. "Yes, for I need a job," was the reply. "Can you go out in the morning?" was the next question. "How far out is it?" asked the man who needed a job. "Two miles and a half," he was told. "Can't do it!" he exclaimed, dropping back into the restful position from which he had been disturbed. "I wouldn't go that far from town to work for anybody."

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The Man Of The Place, inquiring in town for help, was told that it was not much use to look for it. "Jack was in the other day and begged with tears in his eyes for some one to come help him get in his hay and he couldn't get anyone." Jack 's place is only half a mile from town so surely it could not be too far out, but to be sure the sun was shining rather warm in the hay field and the shade in the park was pleasanter. All of which reminds one of the tramps of whom Rose Wilder Lane tells in her Soldiers Of The Soil. She met him, one of many, while on her walking tour thru the state of California. After listening to his tale of woe, she asked him why he did not look for work on a farm. She was sure there must be a chance to find a job there, for the farmers were very short of help. To her suggestion the tramp replied, "Who wants to work like a farmer anyway!"

No one seems to want to "work like a farmer," except the farmer's wife. Well! Perhaps she does not exactly want to, but from the way she goes about it no one would suspect that she did not. In our neighborhood we are taking over more of the chores to give the men longer days in the field. We are milking the cows, turning the separator, feeding the calves and the pigs and doing whatever else is possible, even going into the fields at times. Farmers are being urges to raise more food for the world consumption, to till more acres and also produce more to the acre. Their hands are quite full now and it seems that about the only way they could prepare more help would be to marry more wives.

A few days ago, I ran away from a thousand things waiting to be done and stole a little visit with a friend. And so I learned another way to cut across a corner and save work. Her it is, the way Mrs. Craig makes plum jelly. Cook the plums and strain out the juice: then to 3 cups of the boiling juice add 4 cups of sugar and stir until dissolved. Fill jelly glasses at once and set to one side. If the juice is fresh it will be jelled in the morning and if the juice is from canned plums it takes longer and may have to set over until the next day but it jells beautifully in the end.

Mrs. A. J. Wilder. "Haying While the Sun Shines" Missouri Ruralist,  (July  20, 1916): page 9.

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