Ralph and his father moved to the new ranch the last of August,
and Mr. Wheeler wrote back that late in the fall he meant to ship
a carload of grass steers to the home farm to be fattened during
the winter. This, Claude saw, would mean a need for fodder. There
was a fifty-acre corn field west of the creek,—just on the
sky-line when one looked out from the west windows of the house.
Claude decided to put this field into winter wheat, and early in
September he began to cut and bind the corn that stood upon it
for fodder. As soon as the corn was gathered, he would plough up
the ground, and drill in the wheat when he planted the other
wheat fields.
This was Claude’s first innovation, and it did not meet with
approval. When Bayliss came out to spend Sunday with his mother,
he asked her what Claude thought he was doing, anyhow. If he
wanted to change the crop on that field, why didn’t he plant oats
in the spring, and then get into wheat next fall? Cutting fodder
and preparing the ground now, would only hold him back in his
work. When Mr. Wheeler came home for a short visit, he jocosely
referred to that quarter as “Claude’s wheat field.”
Claude went ahead with what he had undertaken to do, but all
through September he was nervous and apprehensive about the
weather. Heavy rains, if they came, would make him late with his
wheat-planting, and then there would certainly be criticism. In
reality, nobody cared much whether the planting was late or not,
but Claude thought they did, and sometimes in the morning he
awoke in a state of panic because he wasn’t getting ahead faster.
He had Dan and one of August Yoeder’s four sons to help him, and
he worked early and late. The new field he ploughed and drilled
himself. He put a great deal of young energy into it, and buried
a great deal of discontent in its dark furrows. Day after day he
flung himself upon the land and planted it with what was
fermenting in him, glad to be so tired at night that he could not
think.
Ralph came home for Leonard Dawson’s wedding, on the first of
October. All the Wheelers went to the wedding, even Mahailey, and
there was a great gathering of the country folk and townsmen.
After Ralph left, Claude had the place to himself again, and the
work went on as usual. The stock did well, and there were no
vexatious interruptions. The fine weather held, and every morning
when Claude got up, another gold day stretched before him like a
glittering carpet, leading…? When the question where the
days were leading struck him on the edge of his bed, he hurried
to dress and get down-stairs in time to fetch wood and coal for
Mahailey. They often reached the kitchen at the same moment, and
she would shake her finger at him and say, “You come down to help
me, you nice boy, you!” At least he was of some use to Mahailey.
His father could hire one of the Yoeder boys to look after the
place, but Mahailey wouldn’t let any one else save her old back.
Mrs. Wheeler, as well as Mahailey, enjoyed that fall. She slept
