The San Francisco call., 1908-11-22
The Hop Foreman

But the dance anon! Just now, if
you're a newcomer. it's up to you TO
see the foreman and tell him you want
to be put on one of the gangs in the
morning. Out in the hop country it is
never necessary TO ask for job-all
you nave 20 do is make known your de-
sire to work. It's per quantity you're
paid-so the more the merrier and the
sooner the hops are picked. You find
the foreman maybe a straggly made
German with a respect for nothing and
nobody except his employer and the
holding of his job He'll tell you that
he will put you on Mr.. Tupper's gang
IN the morning-Mr. Tupper being one
of the field bosses-and that in the
meantime you can sleep in the barn, on
the hillside under a tree, or any old
place-that it is the custom of hop
and fruit pickers to carry their own
tents. You choose the barn, with a
few empty hop sacks as a mattress, and
instead of a night of tossing, as you
expected. sleep to your surprise like a
very mummy; then at the first gray
peep of dawn rouse yourself to the
singing and chanting of the first party
of pickers on their way to the field.
They are out to catch the dew on the
hops-for between wet hops and dry
there is a difference in weight that
makes it worth while to get UP. Then
if you are there for health or pleasure
the early rising does you good, and
you can holiday in the afternoon, as
many do. There are the laggards, how
ever. who must snore till 6. But by Z
or half past, even they are in the field
and the whole spectacle of "hop CLAW
ming" opens before you.
The field bosses-there are two or
three of them-are usually pleasant fell
lows endeavoring to look cranky. The
crowd is a melange-hearty, care free
ripe with badinage. and Industrious or
idle as the notion takes them With two
or three sometimes working on the
same row, and most likely one OF
them a pretty girl, it is a very easy
matter to be idle too. Then often the
whole field forgets itself-grandfathe
children and ALTO watch somebody
being sacked" for that is the manner
of initiation in a hopfield and with no
regard for sex-the crowd forcing the
sack over your head and tying it
around your heels midst the widest
warwhoops and pandemonium-an In
dian time generally. At work the diff
ferent groups in themselves are inter-
esting. The young lady there-the girl
rather, for women are all girls in the
fruit country-with the glorious auburn
hair and the pouty face, who is spatter-
ing small talk with the broad shoul-
dered, handsome fellow in the sweater,
is the daughter of a foreman in a rail
road yard in San Francisco. She came
out here for health and met the young
man who, as it happens, works in the
same department with her father This
is one of the many pretty romances OF
the hopfeld-for never more will the
glory of that tangle Of auburn hair un-
wind itself from the heart of the young
engineer. So the sun laughs down, for
the sun believes in romance. and did not
nature make girls face on purpose to
be pouty and inviting.
The young halfback picking on the
second row away and famous on the
campus at Stanford well knows it =
you don't. Never once since his advent
has he failed to pick next to the coun-
try maiden whom he calls Marguerite