The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1914-08-06
Putting Up the Grist Was Job
for Rainy Day.
Father Went to Mill, But the Miller
Has Experienced a Change and
the Ancient Methods Have
Become Obsolete.

Happy is the miller that lives by the
mill;
The wheel turns round of Its own freq
will.
The miller may still ba happy, but
he is a different miller from the one
celebrated in song and story. He Is
now a great manufacturer, who buys
his grain In car lots, searching the
whole country by wire for his supply
and contracting for millions Of bush
els a season ahead Of time. His mill
is no longer the picturesque structure
sitting beside the brook. His tower
ing factory has its own side tracks,
its vast grain bins and elevators, its
gigantic power house, its acres of
floor space crowded with rumbling
machinery and whirring belts. His
customers are wholesalers and job
bers in distant cities, and he has no
direct touch with the millions who
will eventually buy the flour and
make their daily bread.
1t was not always SO, writer in the
Detroit Tribune states. In the good
old days back on the farm, putting
up grist was a job for the day when
Jupiter Pluvius planned rest for the
boys and the hired man.
Get the tanning mill out Of the
granary," says dad at breakfast time.
Its raining today, and we might as
we'll put up grist."
1t would be lots pleasanter to lie on
the hay up under the roof of the big
barn and listen to the patter Of the
raindrops and watch the swallows
quarreling with their wives or talking
swallow politics up in the cupola It
would be lots better to have a game
of I-spy, with the big post at the foot
Of the ladder for goal, and a merry
chase up and down among the mows
and hiding under the manger where
you risk your life on the good nature
of the horse munching hay above you.
There are lots of things you could
think of to do on rainy day better
than putting up a grist.
But the grist must be put up. You
get the old broom and sweep the barn
floor all clean as it was once when
you had the party and the boys and
girls came from all over the neighbor-
hood and the fiddlers sat up on the
meal box.
Then the hired man and dad carry
out the old red tanning mill and set
1t down on the barn floor and put on
the hopper and the crank, and set
the right sleeves In the right grooves.
And then the hired man takes the
crank and blows 'er up hard" just to
get the dust out of the mill, and dad
takes the big barn pail and goes into
the bin and brings out a pailful of
wheat and pours it into the hopper.
Then the song of the tanning mill
begins. Ruppy-buppy; ruppy-buppy.
ruppy-buppy, ruppy-buppy. Did you
ever hear it? If you did. you won't
forget 1t in a thousand years. 1t Is
this noise that gauges the speed Of
the mill and shows when you are
turning steadily. And steadily you
must turn or the wheat will clog on
the sleeves. and the sticks and straws
and little gravel stones, which do not
make good bread, will go over with
the wheat into the grist. So the
strong arm Of the hired man keeps
the mill singing ruppy-buppy, ruppy-
buppy, hour after hour, If the grist Is
a big one, and father dips and car
ries, and boys who would rather be
playing I-spy, shovel up the cleaned
wheat into bags.
Then 1t stops raining, after awhile,
but, as 1t is still too wet to cultivate,
father goes to mill. The hired man
puts in the bags and bitches up the
team, while father goes to the house
to slick up and put on paper collar
and his second best suit. Then he
mounts the load and drives away.
Arrived at the mill, father up-ends
the bags and tips them over upon the
miller's hand truck, or pours them
into the outside hopper if the mill az
fords such a convenience. Then he
puts the team under the mill shed or
drives 1t down to the blacksmith's to
have a couple of shoes set, and the
miller starts the endless succession of
little buckets that dip the wheat out
of one hopper into another and carry
it to be cleaned and winnowed and
secured and crushed and sffted and
bolted and bagged. Then father re-
ceives It back with the bran but
minus the miller's toll.
This is as it used to be, but soon
there will be no more going to mill
in the country. The farmer will sell
his wheat to the big miller In the city
and will buy his little sack of -four
from his grocer, just as do the dwell
IN,