I pitched up bundles from below, to an old man of sixty, who wore a
fringe of grey beard, like a Mennonite.
"I don't see why Bonton ever hired you," he remarked unsympathetically,
peering over the top at me from his high-piled load. Several times I had
missed the top and the bundle of wheat had tumbled back to me again....
"I can't be reaching out all the time to catch your forkfuls."
"Just give me time till I learn the hang of it."
I was better with the next load. The waggons came and went one after
the other ... there was a light space of rest between waggons. It was
like the rest between the rounds of a prizefight.
From the cloudless sky the sun's heat poured down in floods. A
monotonous locust was chirr-chirr-chirring from a nearby cottonwood ...
and in the long hedge of Osage oranges moaned wood doves....
By noon I had achieved a mechanical swing that helped relieve the
physical strain, a swinging rhythm of the hips and back muscles which
took the burden off my aching and weaker arms.
That afternoon, late, when the old man drove his waggon up to me for the
hundredth time it seemed, he smiled quizzically.
"Well, here you are still, but you're too skinny to stand it another day
... better draw your two bucks from the boss and strike out for Laurel
again."
--"that so, Daddy!" and I caught three bundles at once on the tines of
my fork and flung them clear to the top, and over.
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