Straw Man - Threshing - Part 7

My first job as deliverer, or straw man

Now I want to relate of my participation in my brothers threshing machine. I had no partnership in it, as it was bought jointly only by my three brothers, but I was a laborer on their threshing outfit called as “straw man”. While my brother Paul was separator man, brother Eli was a fireman, and my job was to deliver straw to steam engine to feed the same.

Well it wouldn't be a hard job, as I could drive my team under the straw stackers, and fill the rack, and that what I started to do at first, my brother Eli told me not to bring straw with chaff, get me straw without chaff from the straw pile, shaking the chaff out with your fork. Well I had to obey and was doing exactly what I have learned to do.

Seeing this Jack Powel the engineer took the Iron fork from Eli’s hands and started to feed the engine with straw and chaff together, showing him how it can be done this way successfully. Of course this lesson was unheeded, as he was not experienced yet and so I had to bring him straw shaken out of chaff during all that threshing season.

Threshing Machine -Date Unkown

So this way it was quite a hard job for straw man too. Maybe some of my readers will be anxious to know how much I earned, and why I did not mentioned about it. Well I don't know myself if there was any re-numeration for me, so maybe father deducted it from his threshing bill.

When whatever job they had with the district was done, we traveled with all gang to Lizard Lake district and the first farmer we stopped to thresh for was Mr. Prinkle not far from the lake. I can't remember the others for whom we threshed, but one always remembers if there was some incident.

Sometimes it happens that separator cylinder gets blocked with sheaves unintentionally and sometimes intentionally, so the workers could have a few minutes of rest. Well this way or that way the cylinder was blocked, and we had to get to it and remove the straw, by pulling it out. I have been helping to do it with one of my brothers, I think Paul as he was separator man, and it is his job to attend to it.

So as we were pulling out straw until it got loose and started to turn, my middle finger on the left hand was caught by cylinder and bar teeths, and my tip of finger with the fingernail was smashed, and though it was painful, I didn't cry nor complain so workers was angered at my patience.

After threshing for some other farmers I can't recollect their names, but the last threshing was at father's place. First brother Ivan had some crop on his land, and then fathers stack, though frozen wheat, but it was threshed and it is the end of the threshing season for 1912.

Hunting ducks

On the north end of a big lake, (really consisting of two lakes, only united by a shallow isthmus on my father's land) stretches for miles a low plain with small lakes and sloughs, and in the autumn they are full of ducks. So one autumn day myself and Eugene Bulani (the older son of Mr. Ergraf Bulani) who is 4 years older than me took our shotguns. I had single barrel and he had old fashioned double barrel and went hunting for ducks. We crawled through the willow bushes to one of the sloughs, where ducks were sitting around swimming on one side and were ready to shoot, when something scared them, or maybe they heard the cracking of dry sticks underneath our feet and flew away, so we had no luck, we could have a worse luck.

We started to come out of these bushes, I was ahead and Eugene behind me, and he started to poke me in the back with a shotgun. I quickly turned back and was horrified to see both cocks on his double barrel shotgun were open. Pointing to them I told him of his carelessness that could cost my life.

Even remembering now I shudder, how close I was to a real tragical death, if it wasn't for the mercy of the Lord, as it says in his word Psalm 121:5 “The Lord is thy keeper praised be his holy name.”

Winter 1912-1913 and summer 1913

This winter especially remarkable for hauling large building logs. My father though not of a big stature but was a strong and tough man, hardened by hard work throughout his life, and at this time being the 58 years of age was still very active. When we arrive with our oxen to the forest, a distance about 10-15 miles, depends how far we get to a deep forest. Then my father starts to look for the thickest and tallest poplar tree then he starts to it with an axe, until it falls down on the side he wants to, otherwise it will be stuck and be hanging on other trees.

It is my job then to trim it from the branches, and to haul it by ox to the sleigh. Such huge logs we could not take more than three on the sleigh, and had to roll them on the sleigh by prying poles, then we are off for a home. It is not bad in the bush, but when we get to open prairie, and the weather is cold with a blowing snow, and the road is blocked, and this load starts to make a creaking noise, and the pulling then starts heavy for the oxen, as the rear section of the sleigh prolonged by the chain, in making another track on the side of the road, and your clothes are frozen, being wet from the snow in the bush. So it is not a fun to be on the road in such time and weather.

After we had enough logs and the bark was peeled off to build that big barn 24x28 feet, and for the first couple rings, the biggest and thickest logs was used, and as the walls was proceeding higher, we had to put two poles on which to roll the log for the wall. I remember one time and two men were swimming in our lake by the house, and when they were coming out, and passing by, just in the time when we were rolling log, so one of them seeing our hard work ran to help us to help, and afterwards he asked my father, “how long this building will last, and my father answered with assurance that it will last for hundred years.

Well it easily could last that long, if the sides of logs were hewed flat line square beams, but as we laid them in the walls, just round as they were, so they cracked in places, letting the moisture in, so they started to rot. Nevertheless that farm is still standing, though it is already 65 years old. The barn was willed to me by my father and I dismantled it and transported to my farm in 1922, and again had to be together log by log, and make anew.

While speaking on this subject about land I want to relate an incident that occurred in the fall of 1919. My mother and my wife were digging potatoes and towards evening we were gathering and putting it in a pile, and just at this particular time, from the West appeared a real black cloud and like a rolling sea with a high wind fast approaching our place. At this time mother told me to go and get something to cover the pile, as I went and was between house and barn, mother cry to me “never mind come back.” As I turned and took couple steps, at this moment, the tornado with the fierce full force from the lake tore away quarter of a roof of the barn and it fell exactly on the spot behind me breaking it into pieces and blown everything way. If I didn't turn back, it could be my caput, and again through mother, angel keeper saved my life.

Also I still had job of breaking prairie soil on section 17^th, as you cannot do much in one summer by oxen. However my brothers bought somewhere a huge eight furrow platform plow for five hundred dollars, and were breaking the land with a steam engine, the one they used for threshing. Brother Eli already obtained license, to operate a steam engine. Well it wasn't easy job, I saw that they had lot of difficulties. They were firing engine with wood, so one hired man was hauling dry wood, had to cut it, and someone has to deliver water, and I saw how Brother Eli was badly burned by sparks from the smoke stack, but the worst thing rocky soil, those numerous stones, that you have to cope with.

To prevent the breakage of every individual plow (stoopka) which was bolted between two flat rails with two bolts, they had to remove front bolt, and instead used a wooden plug, so whenever it will strike the stone, wooden plug will break and the stoopka will just go backwards hanging on one bolt, so it worked okay, but it occurs very often, so the most time were spent on fixing and inserting the wooden plugs again.

My promotion from a straw man to a fireman

As brother Eli had his license for steam engine so he was already engineer, (a big shot for that time) and I took his former place as a fireman. As a fireman I had been on this job for two threshing seasons 1913-1914. My preordination was to get up at 4 AM in the morning, go to a field where steam engine was left from yesterday's threshing, and first job was to clean all the flues inside the engine (can't remember now how many of them) then light the fire and keep on feeding engine with a straw until I'll have 75 lbs. of steam then to blow a whistle.

After blowing whistle, I just close the engine firing door and just sit there and wait for the dawn, and until I see the workers are coming already then I start to fire engine again. The reader may ask why all this procedure and why to get up so early in the morning? Well this is a good question, and if anybody could put this question at that time, maybe it could resolve the problem and be different. The answer is that this is the orders from Masters of threshing outfit, to blow the whistle so early, so as to wake up all workers

Maybe this way was good for somebody, but not for me. As I understand, it was a bad management, as I found out later that on other threshing outfits, all workers and firemen get up in the morning at the same time, and while workers feed their teams and harness them and have their breakfast, there is enough time for firemen to prepare his engine with steam up ready for work. At first I had alarm clock to wake me up at 4 AM, gradually I got used to wake up at this time even 5 or 10 minutes before the clock rings. So the alarm clock was useless.

I never had my meals as breakfast and dinner at farmer's house, because there were no willing men to replace me even for once. Somebody has to bring me leftovers and often I have been forgotten, as to my meals. Still clearly remember one meal that was brought to me, while we threshed at one poor Russian farmer. It was something between borsch or soup in a pot. While I ate it there was on the bottom of big chunk of something what I thought to be a piece of beef, and when I tried to lift it with a spoon, I couldn't. Well I thought it's stuck there by burning and when I was finishing that soup and I have found out why I could not lift it, because there was a big hole in that pot, and it was close with a large piece of rag. Well it is not time to disdain the food when you are hungry, but all the same on seeing it my stomach nearly made a revolution.

As to firing the steam engine with straw, I still had in my mind that demonstrated lesson given by engineer Jack Powell to former fireman, and I started to pursue it and it was a success; nobody ever was shaking out chaff from straw during my two year term as fireman. In the fall of next year in 1916 I was a water man or tank man; had to pump water into tank from the nearest lake or slough, and haul it to a place where threshing is proceeding, and pump it into a tank attached to engine as the water is essential substance for power. Because the water, when constantly heated by fire, produces steam necessary for power, and also it drains water from attached tank by steam when taps will be open in need of to add or replenish the water in engine.

When we were threshing at Mr. Philip's place he had a pile of turnips in his shed, and one of workers  Paul Tetaranko took one, cut a piece of it and started to eat, he cut a piece and gave me too. Well I maybe took a couple bites, and didn't like it, but all the same that small amount of raw turnip had upset my stomach. I had such sore stomach ache, that I never had before or afterwards, and I have to work or supply the water to engine and that was my first and last taste in my life of either raw or cooked turnips, also my last autumn supplying steam engine with water. The following years when I worked at threshing time, I was hauling sheaves.

Throughout all the pioneer years when there were not many threshing machines yet, so threshing time dragged into a late, late autumn. The days at this time were shorter and the weather turned cold and especially colder nights even sometimes there was some snow on the ground and threshing continued in the dark yet. So straw man had to scatter here and there small piles of straw and make fire, so workmen could see the stack of sheaves to pitch them on a rack. After quitting the work on the field and attending to their team of oxen or horses, workmen had their supper. But the worst thing after supper to find a place where to sleep as farmers having only small houses, had no place in them for this gang of workmen, and very rarely farmer had any shed or place in the barn, so everyone had to find a place to sleep, where ever and whatever he could find in the dark of a night at farmer's yard. I remember when we threshed near Cando at Mr. J...'s  farm, and have to look for the place to spend the rest of the night. I found a little higher place outside by the wall of a farm, where I slept that night. Only to find out in the morning, that it was small pile of old manure.

It is the same problem with sleeping accommodation nearly every farmers place. We were lucky, a farmer had a shed or place in barn, to sleep inside of a building, or if there was already threshed pile of straw nearby, so we slept in a straw pile, and it was the best accommodation to sleep in a straw pile.