Free Dry Divide by Ralph Moody

than a goose knows about knitting mittens. It didn’t handle like hay, wouldn’t bind together in good forkfuls, and was as slippery as wet spaghetti. I had to get the heap spread out into some semblance of a stack before any more was piled onto it, and the only way I could think of doing it was by getting on top and scooping as fast and far as I could in both directions. I was so winded I couldn’t speak when Doc pulled his load alongside, and my stack looked like something that had been left over from a hurricane. There were only two things that saved me: Doc and the greenness of Edgar and Everett.
    The boys held their pitchforks as if they were long-handled soup spoons, and with each dab they made at the load they pushed off about as much wheat as a fellow could stuff in his hat. I didn’t stop to look up at them, but kept flailing away with my own fork until Doc caught my eye and motioned me to him. “You’re going at it all wrong, Bud,” he told me quietly. “I’d trade jobs with you only I got my belly full of wheat stacking when I was a kid, and promised myself I’d never do another day’s work that would put callouses on my hands. Don’t try to pitch it like hay. Turn your fork over and use it like you were sweeping deep sand with a broom. Then push it to the outside, but don’t try to tread too close to the edge; it would slip out like hot mush. I’ll let you know how your sides are building; don’t worry too much about ’em. Make your stack about thirty feet long and fifteen wide, and let it round up a little in the middle. Now take it easy; there’s no sense in killing yourself off for this wild man. That’s what he’s trying to do to the whole bunch of us, horses and all. He’s taking twice as much straw as there’s any need for, just to pour the work onto us.”
    I ripped into the heap and dragged wheat, as Doc told me where to push it and how to handle it. By the time Judy turned into the yard with her load I had the heap squared out enough that it looked like the beginning of a stack, but the boys weren’t half finished with their unloading. As Judy pulled in behind Doc’s barge, I heard Hudson yell, “Get that barge unloaded and back here! Driver, give them kids a hand!”
    I’d been too busy to pay any attention to Hudson, but had an idea he was still at the far end of the field, and was surprised to hear his voice so plainly. When I looked up I found that he had nearly circled the field. The header was standing no more than a couple of hundred yards away, and Old Bill was pulling away from it with his barge loaded high. I’d barely glanced up when Doc shouted back, “No business! I hired out as a driver!”
    Doc had no sooner refused than Hudson shouted, “One of you Swedes trade places with one of them kids! I don’t aim to pay for no time when this header ain’t rollin’!”
    For maybe ten seconds Gus and Lars mumbled to each other, then started to climb down from the barge, and Lars told Judy, “Ve kvit.”
    She caught her breath sharply as he said it, and when I looked up two big tears were brimming in her eyes. I knew well enough why they were there, and I’d promised her I’d do everything I could to keep the crew on the job, so I asked Gus and Lars to wait a minute, then went to the barge. I told them in the simplest words I could find that they could have my day’s pay if they’d stay and each work with one of the boys. They mumbled a few more words in Swedish, then Lars nodded and went to climb on Doc’s barge.
    The rest of the forenoon was a series of mad rushes and stops. Hudson drove at the job as if he were trying to harvest the whole two sections in a single day, but the conveyor belts on the header, probably eight or ten years old, couldn’t stand the strain. With the crop having sprung from volunteer seeding, it wasn’t