The tall trees have been swishing pretty steadily for sometime, according to the little poem, but they haven't swept our skies blue much of the time. We still have rain and wind and cold and clouds, which surely make us appreciate a few bright balmy days that occur once in a while. Very little corn is in the ground, and what little has begun to grow looks yellow and dispirited. It is the time when our men are normally straining every nerve to keep the cornfields clean and yet get the alfalfa hay put up. This year there is nothing ready to plow and very little alfalfa to worry about. Much alfalfa killed out this winter. It seems strange to us to hear of the young fellows starting out to the Kansas harvest. Our wheat is growthy and green, but has not started to head. The gardens are thrifty, and I never saw the berries bloom so beautifully. The children are all out of school, and fill the long days with caring for chickens and calves and pigs.
Helped Shell Seed Corn
The other day the children, and I spent the rainy afternoon in the loft of the corn crew, helping Daddy shell the seed corn. The rain beat on the roof and shadows covered the gloomy corners, and softened the lines of the dusty things that accumulate and such a place. We sat on inverted paint, pills, and bushel baskets, and while Daddy sorted and butted and tipped, we shelled the golden grains, the brightest things in the loft, from the glowing red cobs. When the little boys have blistered their hands enough to satisfy them, they set out about other activities – Brother, at some prying and pounding that seemed intensely important to him. Sonny, piling the red cobs into intrinsic shapes. Ruth and I raced each other in the shelling. There would be silence for a while, except for the rain,then we would talk a little, then be quiet again. We covered a lot of subjects in a random way, but one remark of Daddy stands out in memory, making the little homely scene one of the pictures that we carry with us always, not important in themselves, but close to our hearts for the very simplicity.
Isolation Has Its Advantages
"Folks talk a lot," he said, "about the need children have for social life and companionship. I used to pity myself when I was young, because I was the only boy and led what I thought was a lonely life. It was lonelier in some ways than country folks have now, for we had no telephones, radios, or automobiles. But the longer I live the more I feel that there are a lot of advantages in being isolated a bit from the bustle and stir of life. A person learns of necessity to develop resources in himself to do some independent thinking, and to be satisfied without being entertained all the time."
"These children of ours, they don't see the movies in the fire engines often, and don't get to hail the ice cream cone wagon a couple times a day, and don't have enough folks around to get up a ball team, or a tug-of-war, still have some opportunities for self development. Sonny here will never be fidgety, because he hasn't a gang around; he will find contentment in something near at hand, even if it is only piling red cobs to see how high they can build before they will top. There are lots of compensations and being a country child." – Hope.