Excerpt from the autobiography of Taft Rowberry WRATHALL
(1909 - 1985)
[Written approx. 1980 (age 71)]
Haying
The real hard work on a farm comes from responsibilities associated with haying. There would be three crops of alfalfa in the fields in Grantsville, plus one crop of wild hay at Fishing Creek, which was about three miles north of Grantsville. The first crop would be cut between the middle of May and the first of June. For city dudes this requires some explanation. It was cut using a horse-drawn mower, which had a razor sharp blade about 6 to 8 feet long positioned about 2 inches off the ground. Whenever the mower was pulled forward, this blade would oscillate rapidly back and forth, cutting the hay and anything else which happened to get in the way. I have seen many legless birds [become] victims of this machine. As it was pulled by a team of horses (probably the most unreliable thing in the world), we constantly kept in mind the most important principle of self preservation: NEVER, NEVER get off the mowing machine seat and get in front of the cutting blade.
All the hay harvesting was done using either horsepower or manpower. Mowing was a pleasant job. The new-mown hay had a fresh, pleasant smell, there was very little dust and the cut hay would help cool the air down. After the hay was cut, it was raked into long rows using a horse-drawn dump rake. Lish [ Leishman Rowberry WRATHALL (1902 - 1977) ] told me of an experience he had wherein he accidentally fell to the ground in front of one of these moving rakes as he was operating it. Thus he was being dragged and rolled along the ground with the hay, and no one [was] around to help. These rakes are dumped by a foot control from the driver's seat, and they just don't dump unless someone hits that dump control lever. Suddenly the rake dumped itself and he was released with no serious harm. It could have ended tragically, and the reason it didn't he attributed to an act of Providence.
The next operation was a back-breaker. Using a pitch fork, these rows [of hay] would be turned into individual piles about 4 feet square and 2 feet high. It was then left a day or two before being put up in hay stacks or stocked in the barn. Hay racks were used to haul these small piles to the barn or hay stack location. These racks would be driven between two rows of the piled hay and a loader (a person) on each side would pick up the hay piles and throw them on the rack. Someone would be on the rack. Loading hay was undoubtedly the hardest farm work I did. These individual piles weighed between 50 and 100 pounds, and I weighed about 103 pounds. I would stick a pitch fork in the pile of hay and, with considerable effort, lift it up overhead then carry it over to the rack and throw it up and over the rack sides onto the rack. The hay on the outside would be dry and dusty, and I would be sweaty, so as the pile was lifted overhead the dry alfalfa leaves would fall down my neck and stick on my wet back. I hate to even think about it. I can feel these prickly leaves now. The hay piles were nice, cool resting places for snakes, and it seemed they would always stay with the hay until it was just overhead, and then they would come slithering down on my head or shoulders.
I didn't get paid to work in my father's hay fields, but I would "pile hay" for Paul Ed [ Paul Edward WRATHALL (1887 - 1964) ] (my half-brother) for $3 a day plus dinner. Back then dinner was at noon and supper was the evening meal, and dinner for hard working farm hands was an experience of a lifetime. At noon we would come in hot, sweaty and famished. After washing our faces and hands with cool fresh water, we sat down, family-style, to a dinner par excellance. No cucumber and cottage cheese salads - no siree! There would be heaping dishes of beef, mutton, mashed potatoes, gravy, carrots, cabbage, etc, etc. To go along with this there would be pans of hot biscuits, real butter, honey, jam and gallons of unpasteurized milk. To finish off there was always plenty of pie and usually home made ice cream. [Editor's note: Paul Wrathall's wife Carrie ( Anna Carolina PETERSON (1888 - 1972)) was famous in Grantsville for the excellent meals she prepared.]
Father [ James L. Wrathall (1860 -1932)] had a large barn with a cow stable in one end, and, in the summer, the rest of it would be stuffed with hay. Paul Ed stacked his [hay] outside in house-sized stacks. In either case, hay was lifted from the hay rack into the barn or on to the stack using a large fork which had 4 or 5 curved tines about 5 feet long. Attached to this fork was a steel cable, which was threaded around a series of pulleys and then fastened to the "singletree" [behind] Old Sal, our white mule. The position of Old Sal would thus determine the position of the fork. The fork tines would be inserted down into the hay, as it lay loaded on the hay rack. A trigger mechanism locked, so when the fork was lifted the tines would be pointing up and thus grab and hold a large bundle of hay. Old Sal was then coaxed, threatened, cussed, beaten and in other ways coerced to pull the loaded fork up until it was in proper position over the haystack or in the barn, whichever was the order-of-the-day. A small trigger rope was attached to the fork-locking mechanism and held by the man on the hay rack. When the fork load was In proper position, the man in the barn or the man on the haystack would yell "dump", and the man on the rack would give the dump cord a jerk, releasing the fork tines which would drop down releasing the hay.
The kid on Old Sal was called the "derrick boy". He didn't belong to a Union, he had no friends and was blamed for everything. If some of the hay dropped off the fork, it was because the "derrick boy" went too fast. If he took Old Sal a foot too far, the stacker couldn't reach the fork to position it before it was dumped, and the "derrick boy" was chewed out. If Old Sal was not brought back far enough, there wouldn't be enough slack in the cable and the fork couldn't be locked and he got the devil for wasting time. Even when the man on the hay rack carelessly let the fork tines get under the hay rack floor boards and they were pulled loose, the "derrick boy" was found at fault. I was always the "derrick boy", which helps explain the terrible inferiority complex I had throughout my life.
On the 2 or 3 thousand acres at Fishing Creek, it was still haying, but it was a different game. Instead of dusty, dry alfalfa it was wild hay with no leaves, and was usually fresh smelling and cool. The hay was cut the same way as alfalfa and was also raked up in rows, but instead of piling the hay and loading with a pitchfork, it was loaded on the hayrack with a device called a loader. This mechanism was attached to the back of the hayrack, and, at times, with considerable difficulty. It would be detached after loading and then reattached before loading again. The hayrack with the attached loader was then driven astride a row of hay. ... The loader had a series of rotating tines and a continuous belt which would scoop up the hay, as it rode over it, carry it up the belt and dump it in the back of the hayrack. Two people would be in the hayrack; one driving the attached horses to keep them astride the hay row, and the other at the back of the rack, with a pitchfork, distributing the hay around as it came in from the loader. Sometimes when the rows were especially heavy with hay, "poor me" would have to struggle to keep from being buried under the hay as it came pouring in incessantly from the loader. There were no 3-minute rounds with a 1-minute rest period between rounds, but it was like pulling the cork out of a warm bottle of homemade rootbeer: it came and came and came, and if you didn't do something to catch it, it would soon be all over the floor. Snakes liked Fishing Creek hay and occasionally one of these beasts would come up the belt with the hay. If I was quick enough I could pick it up on the pitch fork times and throw it overboard; otherwise, I just mixed it in with the hay. Later, as the loaded hayrack was being driven away and we waited for an empty hayrack to come in for a load, I would lie down on the ground, cradling my head on a pile of hay, and cover my face with my hat. As I did so, I couldn't help chuckle to myself as I pictured the look on the face of the guy on the haystack when he yelled "dump", and this same reptile flopped down in front of him.
Before we started the three-weeks work in the hay at Fishing Creek, a "Sheep Camp" would be set up there at a central location. A Sheep Camp is a covered wagon that looked a lot like the wagons the Pioneers used. It had a canvas top and was outfitted inside with crude cupboards and a wood-burning stove. One of the hired hands acted as a cook, and would start preparing dinner about midmorning. The dinners were less pretentious than those at Paul Ed's, but none left the table hungry unless they were sick. We had plenty of meat (often mutton), potatoes, bread and other standbys. During the haying season, in August, we would leave Grantsville early in the morning aboard a Model A Ford pickup. I would usually squeeze in the back with the food, water, waterbags, pitchforks, crowbars, wrenches, cupgrease, oil cans, ropes and other necessities of the farming industry. I would sit on the car bed floor with my legs dangling out the back, watching to make sure the valuable cargo didn't bounce out!