Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1962-07-29

the line atloaC on a great gold
sea. From them came a steady
backwash Of discarded straw and
q wide wake Of neatly cut stubble.
The wind ripping in waves and
eddies across the unfenced fields
added to the illusion of an oceanic
world of wheat, as did the tall
white grain elevators Of Vernan-
go, rising like lighthouses out of
the haze that hung over the Colo
RADIO border, a dozen miles to the
Southwest.
Where the Buffalo Roomed
After a wild night of thunder
and lightning, the sky was serene
and incredibly blue; the atmos-
phere sitting with the fragrance
of ripening grain.
Even when the red armada dis
appeared down a draw, it trailed
plumes of dust. much the way
the great buffalo herds did in
their passage across these same
plains less than 100 years ago.
Could be that some Pawnee
lchieftain stood on this same rise
and smiled the same smile of sat-
-isfaction that crossed Joe Kumors
face at the sight Of those reassur-
ing puffs of dust on the distant
horizon. ..t s.,.
boy, that's the way I like to
see him cut" cried Joe, not at
all self conscious about the Polish
accent he inherited from his i'm
migrant father. who came West
when the prairie belonged to the
coyote and the RATHER. II tell you
one thing, I'm gonna sleep to-
night. These last few nights I
have some pretty wild dreams"
81 know what you dreamed"
drawled Julius Pfeifer, the tanned
boss Of the cutting crew. You
dreamed a hail storm knocked
that field of wheat so flat you
could see nothing but jack rab-
bits from one end to the other"
The two men laughed the hearty
open laugh of the West. They
were glorying in the annual mira
Gle of harvest, the age-old magic
Of the earth renewing itself.
It's Piline Up Again
In spite of hail and wind and
rain, in spite of green bugs, grass
hoppers and black stem rust, in
spite of weeds and worms and
sHeSsian fly, in spite of drought
and erosion and Government re-
striction, the wheat was piling up
again in the Nations bread bas-
ket. From the Texas Panhandle
to the Canadian border. combine
crews were on the march, moving
the harvest north at the rate of
10 miles a day, cutting a wide
swath across Texas and Oklahoma,
Kansas and Colorado, Nebraska,
Wyoming, Montana and the
-DakotaS.
The Government still didn't
know what to do with it, but
there it was in all its golden
glory.
Little towns that dozed all year
along a neglected spur of the
railroad, entombed in extremes Of
heat and cold, burning wind and
drifting snow, suddenly leaped to
life.
In Grant (pop. 10000, seat of
Perkins County, muscular young
men in big straw hats and denim
jeans Numbered down in the shade
of the store fronts along Central
avenue, overlooked the booths in
the cafes, brought a rush busi-
ness to the pool hall and the COIN
operated laundry.
IS The side streets, the vacant
lots, even the county fair grounds,
were thronged with combines.
!. dump trucks. pickups, huge house
trailers, school buses fitted out as
bunk houses, an occasional mo-
bile cook shack. Bearing the Ii
cense plates of a dozen Western
and Southern States, these were
the wheels that moved the harvest
north.
Like the Pfeifer brothers out of
Cut Bank, Mont, the custom cut
tiers stayed in the area for a week