The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1905-08-31
WITH HARVEST HANDS
Features of Annual Rush to
Kansas Wheatf1elds.
DICKERING FOR TERMS AT A DEPOT
~What Are You Payings" Yell the
Harvesters to Farmers Who Try to
Lure Them Out of the Waiting
Trains-AII Kinds OF Workers.
Chatting Passenger.

Trains-AII Kinds OF Workers.
Chatting a Passengers.
Here she comeSv
A score of farmers sitting on trucks,
patch of shade at one end Of the depot
arise eagerly and crane their necks
gazing down the line Of shimmering
rails where in the distance column Of
smoke tells of the approaching train,
says a Cleveland Qlan) correspondent
of the Kansas City Star. A moment
has stopped at the water tank, and the
farmers are running along the string Of
cars toward the two passenger coaches
at the end, out Of the windows Of
which many harvesters' heads are pro-
truding.
Then begins the dickering for terms.
The harvest hands are reluctant to dis
embark. They feel their Importance
and wish to be coaXed. They think
that if they so farther they will get
are quickly contracted for by the farm
ers Others ask, What are you pay
ing?''
III pay whatever is customary"
says one farmer
You'll have to be more specific than
that to influence me-" declares one of
the brave harvest hands.
oil fo 90 hoy,
west says one farmer scornfully.
'"They are paying Sc day at Pratt,
and working hours are from nine to
eleven there. We have the eight hour
day here-sight hours before noon and
eight hours after. When you start to
bed you meet yourself coming out to
breakfast"
''What we ought to have done,' said
a farmer as the train pulled out, sis to
have taken club to those fellows, We
come down here to meet every train,
but no hands will stop. They're all go
ing to Great Bend They'll be thicker
than chinch bugs there in a day Or
two, then they'll be back this way
looking for jobs
This is the prologue to the annual
drama of the wheat harvest. The stage
Is the Kansas wheat belt, and all the
people are interested spectators. There
is something about the harvesting Of
wheat, the song of the reaper, the gar
nering Of the grain, that vibrates to a
responsive chord in the heart of all
mankind. The wheat-called corn-has
been with man from the beginning
When he first emerged from the night
of his barbaric darkness it was his first
sustenance. The first plot cleared in
the primeval forest was planted to
wheat. Man has prospered only as his
wheatfelds spread So now, far re-
moved from that aforementioned epoch
when all men were farmers, the call Of
the harvest wakes for moment an
echo Of the past in hearts that never
saw the illimitable golden fields nor
heard header hum. All men are in
stinctively interested in the story Of
the wheat-it is atavis1n of the moment
"a reversion to the type Of the dig
ging and corn planting ancestor of the
dimmest past.
What is true Of the wheat harvest is
not true Of other crops The potato is
a newcomer. The cotton crop is a re-
cent thing. Indian corn is young. But
wheat was with the Anglo-SaXon be-
fore he came out of the woods. It trav-
eled with the Babylonian- kings; Jo-
seph, the Jew, cornered it in Egypt,
and Rome ravaged her provinces to
feed it freely to her parasitic citizens.
The great wheat region of Kansas
now presents picture indescribable in
its splendor. Hills and wales are cloth
ed with the yellow wheat In places
for miles it stretches level as a granary
floor. Fences are rare, and roads are
only pathways through the wheat.
Whole counties are but one great wav-
ing, ripening wheatfeld Clumps Of
green trees, farmhouses. and windmills
give character to the scene while over
head in the infinite, arching blue great
fluffy white clouds drift by. Their
grateful shadows chase each other
through the wheat where the first head
er has appeared like picture of some
Old Spanish galleOn tossing on golden
sea.
Rushing down into the heart of the
wheat country come train loads of har-
vesters. They are old men and young
men. ALI sorts and conditions Of men
are among them There is the regular
dyed in the wool hobo who plans to eat
many harvest dinners, but never do a
stroke of work There are those who
intend to get the best job they can and
stick to it till it is done. There are
college boys and men who came as
much for lark as anything else. They
laugh and shout as the train flies along
Alike members Of a picnic excursion. A
passenger boards the train and enters
one of the cars where the harvest
hands are
You don't belong in here" says one.
That's the civilized car back there"
pointing to the chair car.
''I'l bet there will be buns and
ltramps there by the million when we
get there" says college youth dis