The Chaff Bed
By IAN NIALL TRACTOR pulled the mill into place, and in a little while, when they had thrown the thatch on one side, they began threshing the rick. I studied the situation. It was a poor little farm, if indeed it could be called a farm at all, for it was no more than twenty-five stony acres. Its owner, however, had a car and styled himself farmer. He also had a modern tractor and even a milking-machine for his seven or eight cows. Nothing wrong with any of. it, if one forgets that capital investment on such a small acreage. There is no reason why a man should struggle to grow crops, produce milk or do any of the hard tasks of farming with poor tools. Engineers have given thought to the design of agricultural implements, and have produced a set of wonderful devices to go with the tractor. They have dug a grave for the old horse. The new horse may have a kerosene fume and a deal of noise about it, but it will work the clock round and does not eat while it stands in its stable. The engineer has been responsible for a change in the farm-worker. The new labourer on the land is more than a bit of a mechanic. He might not shape too well with an old horse-plough and a Clydesdale team, but he knows when to change gear, elevate his plough and turn on the headland. Different times, different methods.
While I considered these things the chaff began to blow, and I thought of farming as it was in my boyhood. A revolution has taken place in the country since then. There was a sort of revolution in the lifetime of my grandfather, who saw the binder speeding-up harvest, while my great-grandfather thought the steam plough a near-miracle. Steam was not a novelty when it came to the farm. The engineers tried it, and after a while began to think of the internal combustion engine and to look at the plough and the binder again. Their dreams are reality now. Somewhere a young engineer is nursing a new dream.
When I was small, the mill came to the farm when our old walk-mill would not do enough in a short period of time. The arrival of the steam mill was a major event in my life. It came rumbling and shaking up the road and, across the court to the rickyard. It radiated heat and coughed up red sparks and clouds of smoke. Its brass shone. Its polished flywheel and its tall chimney impressed me as nothing else could. I was fascinated by its likeness to a train, first the great engine, then the mill, the operators' cabin and, finally, the water- waggon, all jolting and swaying over mounds and round bends. The chaff and straw flew on the following day, and everyone got thirsty with the dust that filled the air. This happened at the first big threshing of the year, when bedding and feeding- stuff were needed to stock the straw-house and granary. In spring and early summer the dwindling ricks went through the walk-mill, a relic of days long gone, consisting of an arm pulled by a horse plodding in a circle. The arm set in motion a set of gears that worked the mill by means of pulleys and belts. It was in spring that the house was turned inside out. Chairs stood out on the lawn, the blackberry-wine bottles were dusted, and grandfather had his chaff bed filled. That chaff bed has become, for me, a symbol of the kind of men Who farmed in those days and the sort of life that was lived by a farming family. Things were far from easy, and the word subsidy was buried in the dictionary, known to the economist but strange 40 the politician and the soap-box orator.
The old man liked to lie on a chaff bed because it was healthy, because it held something of the ripe harvest and had the clean air of the field in its rustling bulk. A man who rose from a feather bed did so with his wits stupefied, but from a bed of chaff he breathed the scent Of the land and stepped to the floor with a resolve to turn the first furrows in the ten- acre or run a fence to the back of the switchback hill. On the particular day that bedroom, cupboards and corners were turned out, the beds were taken to the chaff-house and filled with the husks of a later year's crop. Into the ticking went the chaff and all the little seeds of the oatfield that were blown from the winnowed grain. The chaff bed contained fragments of a thousand herbs. It became at once a thing to make a tired man drowsy, to transport the mind from the worries of the day and soothe the aching limbs. Only one bed in the house went undisturbed at this time, the feather bed, the bed on which visitors slept. There was more than hospitality in the feather beds being reserved for guests. Visitors slept long and late in the feather bed. They rose when half a day's work was already done and the family had time to answer questions. Feather beds were not for those who had to be alert at five, strong on their feet when the silhouette was fading on the turnip hill and the last of the chicken-run doors were being padlocked.
Make no mistake, these were not the good old days. A man plodded behind his horse and his harrows and thought of the price of foreign eggs and butter. At the term day a ploughman was engaged for fifteen shillings a week and his keep, a cattle- man for ten shillings and a boy for five. Home boys were hired out to farmers to be taught something useful. They slept in the loft. One in ten wanted the land. Nine others ran off and deserted the farm and escaped their charity guardians. In the loft there were no feather beds. A day's work was a little longer than the light of the longest day, six days a week for a hired man, seven for the family. On Sunday the gig was rolled out, the pony yoked, and the old people went trotting eff to church with harness shining, black leather like a mirror and gleaming brass.
No tractor polluted the air of the morning. No silos spoiled the view, but shilling-a-gallon milk often went sour on its way to the creamery on a summer's morning, and, if an old cow looked near death, the economics of the farm made it necessary to send someone for the butcher so that it could be killed and sold as meat instead of as a mere hide. A milking cow could be bought for ten or fifteen pounds and a horse for twenty. All the eggs that could be collected were worth no more than one and fourpence a.dozen, and the butter made was for home consumption. Each member of the family relied on some product for his or her pocket-money and clothes. One tended the sheep at lambing time; another claimed part of the bacon company's cheque. The milk paid the monthly bills. Once a week a fishmonger called, and once a week came the butcher, but usually food was 'home-produced, meat was home-killed, bacon home-cured with salt. Oatmeal was exchanged at the mill for wheat-flour. In the corner of the kitchen stood a meal " ark" in which were kept two sacks, one of oatmeal and the other of flour. Little bread was bought. The griddle—it was always pronounced " girdle "—was used every day, and great stacks of soda- and treacle-scones were baked. The porridge- pot bubbled on the hob night and morning. The ploughman and byreman sat down to as many bowls of porridge and cream as they wanted, as many slices of the big cheese that stood at the end of the Ole, as much butter and heather-honey as they could take. Peat burned in the fire, and a cheerful little canary sang when the morning sun shone through the kitchen windows.
At harvest three horses pulled the binder, and often a tilting reaper had to be used on the lying corn. When all was done, the rickyard was full of hay and oats. The struggle was not to make a profit but to keep heads above water, and when thd old man came back from market, the redness of his cheeks or the heaviness of his step often told whether the year had been a success or a failure. Failure meant a visit to the bank, success the taking of a few bales of wool to the mill to be made up into cloth or blankets. The bed of chaff was soft and soothing, and it needed to be. Those who farmed were men whose life was bound up in the land, and they asked no more than daily bread. Today I doubt whether there are many chaff beds. 1 am sure that the genera- tion that has gone would approve the tools that even the little man has to his hand and, in spite of it all, would sleep on chaff and rise early.
Postage on this issue : Inland and Overseas 2d., Canada (Canadian Magazine Post) Id.
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