IN HARVEST FIELDS
Reading edition
WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUMPKIN’
When the frost is on the punkin’ and the fodder’s in the shock, And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock, And the clackin’ of the guiney’s, and the cluckin’ of the hens, And the rooster’s hallylcoyer as he tiptoes on the fence, O, it’s then’s the time a feller is a-feelin’ at his best, With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest, As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock, When the frost is on the punkin’ and the fodder’s in the shock. James Whitcomb Riley.
ORIGIN OF INDIAN CORN
Once upon a time an Indian chief sat alone in his wigwam thinking about the needs of his tribe. For more than a year food had been very scarce, and they were suffering from a scanty fare of roots, herbs, and berries. Many of the people had come to him in their misery.
“We ask you to help us, brave chief,” they cried. “Will you not entreat the Great Spirit to send us some of the food from the Happy Hunting Grounds where it is so plentiful? See how weak and thin our young braves are. Help us or we shall die.”
“I’ll go into the depths of the forest,” said the chief. “There I’ll live until the Great Spirit tells me how to relieve the misery of my people.”
He left his wigwam and walked far into the forest, where he waited for several days before the Great Spirit spoke these words to him:
“In the moon of rains take thy family and go to the stretch of land which joins this forest. Wait there until I send thee a message.”
The chief went back to the Indian village, and told what he had heard from the Great Spirit. And in the Moon of Rains he called together his honoured wife, his fleet-footed sons, and his graceful daughter, and said, “Follow me to the stretch of land beyond the forest.”
When they reached the great plain, they stood in a group waiting for a message from the Great Spirit. For three suns they stood patiently without once changing their positions.
The Indians of the tribe grew anxious to know what had happened to their chief and his family, and some of them slipped through the wood to the plain where they knew he had been directed to go. There they saw the group of figures standing with their hands uplifted, and their eyes closed. The Indians were filled with awe.
“The Great Spirit is talking to them,” they whispered, as they went back to their wigwams.
In a few days they returned to the plain. A marvelous sight met their eyes. Instead of the chief and his family standing like images of sleep, they saw wonderful green plants, tall and straight, with broad, flat leaves, and in place of uplifted hands they beheld ears of corn with silken fringe.
“The Great Spirit has called our chief and his family to the ‘Happy Hunting Grounds,’” they said, “and has sent us this food as a symbol of their sacrifice.”
They saved some of the kernels and planted them in the fields, and each year when they reaped a golden harvest they remembered the brave chief whose thoughtful care brought them the rich blessing of the Indian corn.
Sing, O Song of Hiawatha, Of the happy days that followed, In the land of the Ojibways, In the pleasant land and peaceful! Sing the mysteries of Mondamin, Sing the Blessing of the Cornfields! Henry W. Longfellow.
O-NA-TAH: THE SPIRIT OF THE CORN-FIELDS
Harriet Converse
O-na-tah is the spirit of the corn, and patroness of the fields. The sun touches her dusky face with the blush of the morning, and her dark eyes grow soft as the gleam of the stars that float on dark streams. Her night-black hair flares in the breeze like the wind-driven cloud that unveils the sun. As she walks the air, draped in her maize, its blossoms plume to the sun, and its fringing tassels play with the rustling leaves in whispering promises to the waiting fields. Night follows O-na-tah’s dim way with dews, and Day guides the beams that leap from the sun to her path. And the great Mother Earth loves O-na-tah, who brings to her children their life-giving grain.
At one time O-na-tah had two companions, the Spirit of the Bean and the Spirit of the Squash. In the olden time when the bean, corn, and squash were planted together in the hill these three plant spirits were never separated. Each was clothed in the plant which she guarded. The Spirit of the Squash was crowned with the flaunting gold trumpet blossom of its foliage. The Spirit of the Bean was arrayed in the clinging leaves of its winding vine, its velvety pods swinging to the breeze.
One day when O-na-tah had wandered astray in search of the lost dew, Hah-gweh-da-et-gab captured her, and imprisoned her in his darkness under the earth. Then he sent one of his monsters to blight her fields and the Spirit of Squash and the Spirit of Bean fled before the blighting winds that pursued them. O-na-tah languished in the darkness, lamenting her lost fields. But one day a searching sun ray discovered her, and guided her safely back to her lands.
Sad indeed was O-na-tah when she beheld the desolation of her blighted fields, and the desertion of her companions, Spirit of Squash and Spirit of Bean. Bewailing the great change, she made a vow that she would never leave her fields again.
If her fields thirst now, she can not leave them to summon the dews. When the Flame Spirit of the Sun burns the maize O-na-tah dare not search the skies for Ga-oh to implore him to unleash the winds and fan her lands. When great rains fall and blight her fields the voice of O-na-tah grows faint and the Sun can not hear. Yet faithful she watches and guards, never abandoning her fields till the maize is ripe.
When the maize stalk bends low O-na-tah is folding the husks to the pearly grains that the dew will nourish in their screening shade, as they fringe to the sun.
When the tassels plume, O-na-tah is crowning the maize with her triumph sign, and the rustling leaves spear to the harvest breeze.
MONDAMIN
Summer passed and Shawondasee Breathed his sighs o’er all the landscape, From the South-land sent his ardours, Wafted kisses warm and tender; And the maize-field grew and ripened, Till it stood in all the splendour Of its garments green and yellow, Of its tassels and its plumage, And the maize-ears full of shining Gleamed from bursting sheaths of verdure. Then Nokomis, the old woman, Spake, and said to Minnehaha, “’Tis the Moon when leaves are falling, All the wild rice has been gathered, And the maize is ripe and ready; Let us gather in the harvest, Let us wrestle with Mondamin, Strip him of his plumes and tassels, Of his garments green and yellow.” And the merry Laughing Water Went rejoicing from the wigwam, With Nokomis, old and wrinkled, And they called the women round them, Called the young men and the maidens, To the harvest of the cornfields, To the husking of the maize-ear. Henry W. Longfellow.
THE DISCONTENTED PUMPKIN
Jack Frost visited Farmer Crane’s field one night, and the next morning the gold of the pumpkins shone more brilliantly than ever through their silver coverings.
“It is of no use,” said one large pumpkin to another lying beside it. “It is of no use. I was never made to be cut up for pumpkin pies. I feel I was put here for something higher.”
“Why, what do you mean?” said the other. “You never seemed dissatisfied before. You quite take my breath away.”
“Well, to tell the truth, I do not like the thought of being cut up and served on a table like an ordinary pumpkin. See how large I am, and what a glorious colour. Tell me, did you ever see a pumpkin more beautiful?”
“You are beautiful, indeed, but I never thought of being made for anything but pies. Do tell me of what other use can one be?”
“Well, I have always thought that I am not like the other pumpkins in this field, and when Farmer Crane pointed me out as the finest one he had, I heard him say, ‘That would be a fine one for a fair.’ It was not till then that I really knew for what I was intended.”
“I do remember,” answered the other. “Yes, I do remember hearing about some pumpkins’ being taken to a county fair once, but I never heard how they liked it. As for myself, I should be proud to be made into delicious pies and served on a beautiful plate.”
“How can you be satisfied with that thought? But there is Farmer Crane now. He is gathering some of the smaller pumpkins to make pies with, I think.”
“Perhaps he knows best what you are made for,” answered the other.
Farmer Crane was soon at their side, and was looking from one to the other.
“What fine pies they will make. I had better take them now, I think,” he said, and they were quickly added to the golden heap already on the wagon.
How happy they all were—all but one that lay on the top of the large pile.
“It is hard to be thrown in with these ordinary pumpkins. If I could only slip off by myself. Perhaps there is at least a place at the bottom of the wagon where I can be alone.”
It was a long way from the top of the pile to the bed of the wagon, but it was very little trouble to slip away from the rest. It would take only a second, and then he could be away from the others. But alas! the discontented pumpkin slipped a little too far, and I’m sorry to say, soon lay on the frozen ground, a shattered heap.
“Dear me,” said the pumpkins in one breath; “see, that fine fellow has slipped off, and is broken to pieces. What a feast the cows and pigs will have.”
“It is too bad,” said one.
“And he was so anxious to be taken to a fair,” added another.
Hurrah for the tiny seed! Hurrah for the flower and vine! Hurrah for the golden pumpkin; Yellow and plump and fine! But better than all beginnings, Sure, nobody can deny, Is the end of the whole procession—— This glorious pumpkin pie!
BOB WHITE
I see you on the zig zag rails, You cheery little fellow! While purple leaves are whirling down, And scarlet, brown or yellow. I hear you when the air is full Of snow-down of the thistle; All in your speckled jacket trim, “Bob White! Bob White!” you whistle. Tall amber sheaves, in rustling rows, Are nodded there to greet you, I know that you are out for play—— How I should like to meet you! Though blithe of voice, so shy you are, In this delightful weather; What splendid playmates, you and I, Bob White, would make together. There, you are gone! but far away I hear your whistle falling, Ah! maybe it is hide and seek, And that’s why you are calling. Along those hazy uplands wide We’d be such merry rangers; What! silent now and hidden, too? Bob White, don’t let’s be strangers. Perhaps you teach your brood the game, In yonder rainbowed thicket, While winds are playing with the leaves, And softly creaks the cricket. “Bob White! Bob White!” again I hear That blithely whistled chorus, Why should we not companions be? One Father watches o’er us! George Cooper.
THE LITTLE PUMPKIN
Emma Florence Bush.
Once there was a little pumpkin that grew on a vine in a field. All day long the sun shone on him, and the wind blew gently around him. Sometimes the welcome rain fell softly upon him, and as the vine sent her roots deep down into the earth and drew the good sustenance from it, and it flowed through her veins, the little pumpkin drank greedily of the good juice, and grew bigger and bigger, and rounder and rounder, and firmer and firmer.
By and by he grew so big he understood all that the growing things around him were saying, and he listened eagerly.
“I came from the seed of a Jack-o’-lantern,” said this vine to a neighbour, “therefore I must grow all Jack-o’-lanterns.”
“So did I,” said a neighbour, “but no Jack-o’-lanterns for me. It is too hard a life. I am going to grow just plain pumpkins.”
When the little pumpkin heard he was supposed to be a Jack-o’-lantern, he grew very worried, for he could not see that he was in any way different from any ordinary pumpkin, and if Mother Vine expected him to be a Jack-o’-lantern, he did not want to disappoint her.
At last he grew so unhappy over it that the dancing little sunbeams noticed it. “What is the matter, little pumpkin?” they cried. “Why do you not hold up your head and look around as you used to do?”
“Because,” answered the little pumpkin, sadly, “I have to be a Jack-o’-lantern, and I don’t know how. All I know about is how to be a little yellow pumpkin.”
Then the merry little breezes laughed and laughed until they shook the vine so that all the pumpkins had to tighten their hold not to be shaken off. “Oh, little pumpkin!” they cried, “why worry about what you will have to do later? Just try with all your might to be a little yellow pumpkin, and believe that if you do the best you can, everything will be all right. We know a secret, a beautiful secret, and some day we will tell it to you.”
“Oh, tell me now!” cried the little pumpkin, but the sunbeams and breezes laughed together, and chuckled,
“Oh no, oh no, oh no! Just grow and grow and grow, And some day you will know.”
The little pumpkin felt comforted. “After all,” he thought, “perhaps if I cannot be a Jack-o’-lantern I can be a good pumpkin, and I am so far down on the vine perhaps Mother Vine won’t notice me.” He looked around, and saw that all his brothers and sisters were only little pumpkins, too.
“Oh, dear,” he cried, “are we going to disappoint Mother Vine? Aren’t any of us going to be Jack-o’-lanterns?” Then all his little brothers and sisters laughed, and said, “What do we care about being Jack-o’-lanterns? All we care about is to eat the good juice, and grow and grow.”
At last came the cold weather, and all the little pumpkins were now big ones, and a beautiful golden yellow. The biggest and yellowest of all was the little pumpkin who had tried so hard all summer to grow into a Jack-o’-lantern. He could not believe Mother Vine did not see him now, for he had grown so big that every one who saw him exclaimed about him, and Mother Vine did not seem at all disappointed, she just kept at work carrying the good food that kept her pumpkin children well fed.
At last one frosty morning, a crowd of children came to the field. “The pumpkins are ready,” they cried. “The pumpkins are ready; and we are going to find the biggest and yellowest and nicest to make a Jack-o’-lantern for the Thanksgiving party. All the grandmothers and grandfathers and aunts and uncles will see it, and we are going to eat the pies made from it.”
They looked here and there, all over the field, and pushed aside the vines to see better. All at once they saw the little pumpkin. “Oh!” they cried, “What a perfect Jack-o’-lantern! So big and firm and round and yellow! This shall be the Jack-o’-lantern for our Thanksgiving party, and it is so large there will be pie enough for every one.”
Then they picked the pumpkin and carried him to the barn. Father cut a hole in the top around the stem, lifted it off carefully and scooped out the inside, and the children carried it to mother in the kitchen. Then father made eyes and a nose and mouth, and fitted a big candle inside. “Oh, see the beautiful Jack-o’-lantern!” they cried.
The little pumpkin waited in the barn. “At last I am a Jack-o’-lantern,” he said. After a time it grew dark, and father came and carried him into the house, and lighted the candle, and put him right in the middle of the table, and all the grandmothers and grandfathers, and aunts and uncles, cried, “Oh, what a beautiful, big, round, yellow Jack-o’-lantern!”
Then the little pumpkin was happy, for he knew Mother Vine would have been proud of him, and he shone—shone—SHONE, until the candle was all burned out.
AUTUMN
Then came the Autumn all in yellow clad, As though he joyèd in his plenteous store, Laden with fruits that made him laugh, full glad That he had banished hunger, which to-fore Had by the body oft him pinchèd sore: Upon his head a wreath, that was enroll’d With ears of corn of every sort, he bore; And in his hand a sickle he did hold, To reap the ripen’d fruits the which the earth had yold. Edmund Spenser.