The Code
There were three in the
meadow by the brook
Gathering up windrows, piling
cocks of hay,
With an eye always lifted
toward the west
Where an irregular sun-bordered
cloud
Darkly advanced with a perpetual
dagger
Flickering across its bosom.
Suddenly
One helper, thrusting pitchfork
in the ground,
Marched himself off the field
and home. One stayed.
The town-bred farmer failed
to understand.
“What is there wrong?”
“Something you just
now said.”
“What did I say?”
“About our taking pains.”
“To cock the hay?—because
it’s going to shower?
I said that more than half
an hour ago.
I said it to myself as much
as you.”
“You didn’t know.
But James is one big fool.
He thought you meant to find
fault with his work.
That’s what the average
farmer would have meant.
James would take time, of
course, to chew it over
Before he acted: he’s
just got round to act.”
“He is a fool if that’s
the way he takes me.”
“Don’t let it
bother you. You’ve found out something.
The hand that knows his business
won’t be told
To do work better or faster—those
two things.
I’m as particular as
anyone:
Most likely I’d have
served you just the same.
But I know you don’t
understand our ways.
You were just talking what
was in your mind,
What was in all our minds,
and you weren’t hinting.
Tell you a story of what happened
once:
I was up here in Salem at
a man’s
Named Sanders with a gang
of four or five
Doing the haying. No
one liked the boss.
He was one of the kind sports
call a spider,
All wiry arms and legs that
spread out wavy
From a humped body nigh as
big’s a biscuit.
But work! that man could work,
especially
If by so doing he could get
more work
Out of his hired help.
I’m not denying
He was hard on himself.
I couldn’t find
That he kept any hours—not
for himself.
Daylight and lantern-light
were one to him:
I’ve heard him pounding
in the barn all night.
But what he liked was someone
to encourage.
Them that he couldn’t
lead he’d get behind
And drive, the way you can,
you know, in mowing—
Keep at their heels and threaten
to mow their legs off.
I’d seen about enough
of his bulling tricks
(We call that bulling).
I’d been watching him.
So when he paired off with
me in the hayfield
To load the load, thinks I,
Look out for trouble.
I built the load and topped
it off; old Sanders
Combed it down with a rake
and says, ‘O. K.’
Everything went well till
we reached the barn
With a big catch to empty
in a bay.
You understand that meant
the easy job
For the man up on top of throwing
down
The hay and rolling it off
wholesale,
Where on a mow it would have
been slow lifting.
You wouldn’t think a
fellow’d need much urging
Under these circumstances,
would you now?
But the old fool seizes his
fork in both hands,
And looking up bewhiskered
out of the pit,
Shouts like an army captain,
‘Let her come!’
Thinks I, D’ye mean
it? ‘What was that you said?’
I asked out loud, so’s
there’d be no mistake,
‘Did you say, Let her
come?’ ‘Yes, let her come.’
He said it over, but he said
it softer.
Never you say a thing like
that to a man,
Not if he values what he is.
God, I’d as soon
Murdered him as left out his
middle name.
I’d built the load and
knew right where to find it.
Two or three forkfuls I picked
lightly round for
Like meditating, and then
I just dug in
And dumped the rackful on
him in ten lots.
I looked over the side once
in the dust
And caught sight of him treading-water-like,
Keeping his head above.
‘Damn ye,’ I says,
‘That gets ye!’
He squeaked like a squeezed rat.
That was the last I saw or
heard of him.
I cleaned the rack and drove
out to cool off.
As I sat mopping hayseed from
my neck,
And sort of waiting to be
asked about it,
One of the boys sings out,
‘Where’s the old man?’
’I left him in the barn
under the hay.
If ye want him, ye can go
and dig him out.’
They realized from the way
I swobbed my neck
More than was needed something
must be up.
They headed for the barn;
I stayed where I was.
They told me afterward.
First they forked hay,
A lot of it, out into the
barn floor.
Nothing! They listened
for him. Not a rustle.
I guess they thought I’d
spiked him in the temple
Before I buried him, or I
couldn’t have managed.
They excavated more.
’Go keep his wife
Out of the barn.’
Someone looked in a window,
And curse me if he wasn’t
in the kitchen
Slumped way down in a chair,
with both his feet
Stuck in the oven, the hottest
day that summer.
He looked so clean disgusted
from behind
There was no one that dared
to stir him up,
Or let him know that he was
being looked at.
Apparently I hadn’t
buried him
(I may have knocked him down);
but my just trying
To bury him had hurt his dignity.
He had gone to the house so’s
not to meet me.
He kept away from us all afternoon.
We tended to his hay.
We saw him out
After a while picking peas
in his garden:
He couldn’t keep away
from doing something.”
“Weren’t you relieved
to find he wasn’t dead?”
“No! and yet I don’t
know—it’s hard to say.
I went about to kill him fair
enough.”
“You took an awkward
way. Did he discharge you?”
“Discharge me?
No! He knew I did just right.”
