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Coming of Age At FifteenThe summer of 1943 was the time I was initiated into adulthood. There are notmany places today where youths are provided this initiation. There are no tribesof old men taking boys from their parents and going off into the wilderness forrituals of endurance, returning them as grownups. I had unknowingly fallen intosuch an opportunity.World War II had been raging for two and a half years. I was fifteen, and afreshman in High School. A representative of the school presented the studentswith opportunities to spend their summer on various Midwestern farms, helping thefarmers. The military draft had taken most of the farm laborers to war, but thefarm products were vital to the war effort. I signed up, being lean and muscularand a good match for the hard work on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. What a great wayto support the war effort, to get a new experience, and to occupy my summer. Myfamily concurred, since the program would be well supervised. Within days afterthe semester ended I was living in the garret of an old farm house, some onehundred miles north of Chicago.My supervisor in the program was Seth Phelps, who came by the farm monthly to askhow I was doing. He reminded me by his presence that I had made a commitment toserve the war effort all the way through the summer, until school began again. Myfarmer boss, Henry Strohm, laid out the ritual and discipline against which Iwould batter my body and my will.GETTING INTO ITThere was no end of things I had to do for the first time. The days werefilled from beginning to end with instructions and sweat. I had never worked on afarm before. Farms were places my dad’s parents lived, where I would visit onThanksgiving, play with my cousins, and maybe hunt rabbits with the men. This,however, was serious business, and each hour of the day I learned a new lesson: tomilk a cow (we had Surge electric milkers), harness a horse, run a mower or dumprake, put up hay, plough the garden, carry the milk cans, clean the barn, feed outsilage, call the cows, wash the cream separator. Henry gave each lesson briefly,and I proceeded to follow up with failures and successes.The weeks passed. There was a series of hay cuttings and they had to be raked,bailed or piled onto the wagon, raised into the haymow and pitched under thesloping barn roof. Twenty-two cows had to be brought into the barn twice each day(before dawn and at dusk), after I had cleaned their cow pies from the guttersthat ran behind them and fed silage into the mangers in front of them. Then Henryand I carried one of the milking machines to each cow, wiping clean her warm, fulludder, placing the funnels onto each of her teats.There was something peaceful and comforting about the bovine body, her willingnessand thankfulness to be relieved, and the swak-sook noises of the milking line. Aseach container, hanging under her belly, was full of milk I would unhook it fromher, carry it to the waiting milk can and empty the contents. Then I would placethe machine on the next cow, as she patiently chewed her breakfast or supper.After this relatively quiet operation, I placed these 100 pound milk cans on arickety two-wheeled cart and rolled it about half a city-block down to the milkhouse. That building was situated where a spring of fresh, cool water flowed intoa tank. I lifted the heavy cans off the cart, into the milk house and up over theedge of the tank, where they were kept cool until the fellow from the milk companycame to pick them up the next morning.One of the least pleasant chores assigned to me was cleaning out the chickenhouse. It was a task so smelly and revolting on a hot summer day that I becamerepulsed by the sight of eggs fresh from the henhouse with their dung-coveredshells.One day Henry told me a calf was being born down in the field, and to sneak alongthe lane where I could lie quietly along the fence row and watch this special
 
miracle. That I did, and it was indeed an awesome sight. The mother immediatelygot up, cleaned and cared for the newborn. City boys, like I was, never got tosee such things growing up.SILO CLEANINGFor years I had admired the smooth silhouettes of silos as we would drivethrough the countryside. They seemed to be always attached to barns, but I had noidea how they were used. The Strohm farm had its solitary silo, a tall tankattached to the cow barn. Within hours of my arrival at the farm I was inside ofit, and immediately discovered how it was used. It held chopped corn with stalksthat were fed out to the cows while they were in for milking. Silage fermentedover the months, and as the winters turned to spring the mash was terriblypungent. Henry told me that some farmers placed open jugs at the bottom of thesilo before putting in each year’s crop. The fermented corn liquor collected tocreate quite a powerful drink. Henry’s Lutheran commitment did not permit suchindulgences, but now I understood the jokes about “white lightening” as thepungent odor overwhelmed me.Sometime in early summer or late spring the remainder of the silage had beencovered over with tarpaper, held down by boards. My job was to uncover this pileso that we could feed it out over the next weeks and have the silo empty in timefor refilling in September. I jumped down about four feet from the barn floorinto the sunken, circular space. Looking up at the tall empty space above me, Ibecame dizzy enough to lose my footing. I landed on the boards, and a loud SQUEAKrevealed a nest of mice right where I sat down. I peeled back the tarpaper anddiscovered dozens of mice that had found homes and raised young in thisundisturbed hideaway of endless food. They all seemed a bit tipsy as they ran inevery direction trying to scramble up the walls, but most were unable to leap thedistance out of the hold. Some made it, but others fell back to be trampled by mywork boots according to the instructions I had received. I did “the dance of thecorn mash” as I pranced from side to side, killing mice. Several cats joined mein the gruesome operation, and for me the place became the most abhorrent locationon the farm, that is next to the chicken house.For several weeks I had to endure the awful odor of fermented corn silage while Irationed it out to the cows. I was told it was a powerful stimulant for theirmilk, and a little went a long way when blended with hay. I remember how one daythe loneliness of my situation rushed over me while shoveling out the day’ssilage, and I sat down in the mess to indulge in a good cry. Who was I to callupon? Mom? Dad? God? Only God brought me comfort, though the pain was stillthere.MOWINGThere was very little about farming that I liked as the summer progressedexcept mowing the hay. I really enjoyed driving the tractor or the team ofhorses, depending on which Henry decided to use that day. It was not clear to mewhy horses would ever be used instead of the tractor, but I loved to harness thebig team and ride the mower behind them around and around the field. This jobtook me out in the fields, away from the barn with its cow manure and silage andhay. It was a job that didn’t take a whole lot of effort, and I would play gameswith the symmetry of the swath I was cutting.After the mowing there was the raking. The onslaught of the dump rake stirred uprabbits, grouse and mice, which made it all the more interesting. Being close tothe horses, Jolly and Molly, was enjoyable. The interplay between them and me wasa challenge. Unlike most of my tasks, which required only muscular strength andendurance, this one stimulated my mind.THE DUMP RAKE
 
I must tell you about the dump rake. Henry had borrowed his neighbor’s, a widecontraption carried between two large steel-spoke wheels. It worked like a combgathering snarls, as its curved teeth raked the ground pulling the mowed alfalfainto windrows. Riding the metal seat the driver could look down and see when thecontraption was full, pull the trip lever, and the rake swung upward to depositthe load. Each time around the field the load was dumped on the same lines,called windrows. These were left to dry, and then the bailing machine would runup the windrow pulling in the endless line of hay, compacting it, tying it withwire, and spitting it out the other end. I marveled at the geniuses who inventedthese machines. Each time we came in line with the windrow I pulled a lever andthe rake came up. It left the gathered hay, then lowered to start gatheringagain. The trick was to raise it in such a timely manner that the added mop ofhay was exactly in line with the previous dump.One day, before I had been taught to use the dump rake, it was time to takethe hay. Henry had not planned for me to do it, but I pleaded. “I can do it, Ican drive the horses and operate the rake,” I assured him. I thought this wouldsurely be better than cleaning out the chicken house, which Henry wanted me to do.My mentor was reluctant, “This dump rake isn’t mine. It belongs to aneighbor and we don’t get along too well anyhow,” he said. “If anything happenedto it…”I interrupted, “I’ll be very careful. I know I can do it.”Henry surrendered, and soon I was on my way with Henry’s caution in my ears,“Be very careful when you bring the horses along the fence row. Keep them at aslow pace and wide from the fence. If that big wheel got caught in the fence itwould be a disaster...”The image was vivid. He didn’t have to finish the sentence.The afternoon went well and I had the small field of hay laid out inwindrows for the sun to dry. I thought about how complicated it was for thefarmer; so many steps to get in his crops, so many hours expended! The horseswere eager to get home. It was time to eat and they knew it, so when I turned thedump rake out of the field and into the lane toward the barn the team took off. Iheld them back at first, conscious of the fencerow that we were passing, postafter post. Soon, however, they broke into a trot, and the breeze felt good on mysweaty face and body. The fence posts whizzed by with increasing speed andHenry’s warning replayed in my mind. The horses became erratic, weaving left andright as I tried to pull them in. The huge iron wheel with its long thin spokesveered dangerously close to the fence, and I pulled hard to the left on the reinsto get the team away. Suddenly they were in a gallop, and just as suddenly I waslying in the lane in front of the horses who had stopped dead in their tracks.The momentum had carried me over their heads. To my horror I saw the great wheelwas entangled in the fence, buckled inward on one side.I do not like to rehearse this. After these many decades it is still one ofmy most painful moments. Frankly, I have suppressed the rest of the story. Idon’t know why Henry didn’t send me home that night. I think he was shocked andsaddened, and probably blamed himself for letting a kid talk him into driving theborrowed dump rake. I vaguely recall that he and I went to call on the neighborfor my confession of sin. Other than that, apparently Henry and his neighborworked it out. I don’t know who paid for the damage, how or when it was fixed. Ido know the horrible experience probably helped set my resolve to stick it outwith Henry, and try to make up for what I had done.PUTTING UP HAYAfter cutting and raking the alfalfa, the third step was to get it into the barn.I recall one time Henry borrowed a bailer, and while he drove the tractor I sat onthe bailer and fed in the wires for the bales. Later the horses pulled a hay wagon
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