St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1885-10-01
The California Thrashers.

All this season of the year, as you
ride over the plains, with the grain
stubble shooting its yellOwness into
the retina of your eye, you will see, il
your sight be not OverpOwered by the
jaundiced light, the smoke which from
many thrashers floats on the breeze
You may, perhaps-and we'll yOu may
congratulate yourself on not being
as these men who work about the
| thrashers. Possibly you have read
somewhere that, although the temper
allure of the San Joaquin valley runs
| high in summer, there is Il popularity
of climate which enables men to work
in the harvest field without serious
discomfort. Although unable at this
moment to refer exactly TO the places
where | have seen that little piece of
fiction in print, | am sure that if it
were worth the trouble | could make
an extensive collection of paragraphs
embOdying that outcome of the imagi-
nation with no material variation from
the words and none whatever from the
idea written above. The cool people
in clean linen who write such para
graphs in shaded rooms, pitcher of
iced water ut hand, palm leaf on the
table, are doubtless ignorant of what
they write. An hour Oh the table of Il
thrasher or on grain stack during
such day rs this on the San Joaquin
plains, under the pitiless glare of the
sun and the wind, would shrivel up
such people like blasted leaves.
The term terrible would scarcely be
an extravaganza if applied to this
work. Men do stand up to it without
hot
tiles will not men undergo in the
who drop by the wayside.
They 'Epeter Out"-they die some
times. You have heard that sun
enough. AS compared with many
other lands, IL man can suffer here
longer without reaching the point of
lapses without counting among its
victims some of the men toiling with
the thrashers in this valley. Perhaps
a few only each year, and not much to
be noticed. For what matters har-
vest hand more or less If it were a
question of horses or mules-that
would be a more difficult and serious
subject but fellow "running with
stick him under ground before he
shall smell too lOudl y-and let us have
"more straw"
1t was, believe, thinking of these
men that set me at writing this letter, |
for it ran in my mind that if here, in
this piney shadow, without physical !
exertiOn, one could so feel the scarify- |
ing heaving of the atmosphere. what |
L. L. -
were from earliest dawn TO the last |
twinkle of light of this long day toss
ing and dragging the derrick forks or
''hOeing down" the straw or "buckingr
the heavy sacks of grain, or doing any |
other of the thrasher work without a |
particle of protection for their begrim-
ed bodies from the hammering of the
sun and the Internal wind.
] don't ask your sympathy for these |
men. There are at this moment
thousands of them at work in CaIifor-
MIA, and it would require an immense
of sympathy to go around and
allow little for each. Besides thew
are not obliged to labor at this kind of
work. They can leave it alone and
starve. To-day hundreds of them will
reach the conclusion that the chances
Of starvation are preferable to the
work-not absolute starvation, but a
meal begged every few days to keep
them alive-and their places will be
filed with hundreds of others, think
ng themselves lucky to be allowed to
earn an existence. OF the ones who
luit-"petered out" many of them
people will say that they only care to
work long enough to get few dollars
o spend in drink. In all likelihood