Farm life -- Fiction; United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction; Wisconsin -- Fiction
On the morning of June 28, 1914--the day that Gavro Princip shot
the Archduke Ferdinand at Serajevo--Stud Brailsford awoke just
before dawn. Ducks were quacking, geese hissing in the barnyard.
Roosters were heralding the dawn, answered across the lake by other
roosters. A cow bawled at her calf, the wind rustled in the corn.
Ten miles away a train whistled, and rumbled across the river
bridge. To Stud's simple mind the world had never seemed more
peaceful. The smell of coffee, toast and sausage drifted up from
the kitchen. The first streaks of color were showing in the east,
reflected on the surface of the lake.
Stud did not know that Europe was an armed camp, that civilization
was about to be blown to bits, that Wisconsin farm boys, whistling
as they went to the barns that morning, would soon be lying in the
mud of Flanders. Stud had never heard of the Archduke Ferdinand nor
of Serajevo. You could not have convinced him that a shot fired
by a Serb in remote Bosnia could affect his prosperous dairy farm
on Crabapple Point in the Fertile Rock River valley of Southern
Wisconsin.
It was Sunday. Peter and Gus were already up and doing the chores.
Stud could lie abed for another half hour if he wished. He could
go swimming in the lake, or merely lie in the hammock under the
trees, listening to the birds and taking life easy. Such indolence
was all but unbelievable to the big farmer who for the past three
and one-half months had been working sixteen hours a day, laboring
evenings and holidays, even breaking God's commandment by plowing
on Sunday. But at last the crops were planted; the corn was
knee-high, and the twenty acres of tobacco were a rich, healthy
green.
Stud yawned, stretched like a big cat, rolled out of bed and donned
clean blue shirt and overalls. Carrying his shoes and socks in his
hand he padded down the stairs, enjoying the feeling of the cool,
smooth wood under his bare feet. Sarah and Early Ann were busy over
the kitchen stove, the spot where they spent many a Sabbath.
"Sleepy-head," taunted Early Ann. "Chores are most done."
For the first time since the burning of the barn Stud really
noticed the girl. My, she was pretty! After breakfast he saw her
take sunbonnet and milkpail and start up the path toward the
strawberry patch beyond the hill. Ten minutes after she was out of
sight, he followed.
Sarah Brailsford guessed where he was going, and why, but she did
not raise a finger to stop him. Gus Gunderson knew by second nature
what was up. Stud, chewing a stem of Timothy, climbed the hill,
skirted the orchard, and there he found them.
For a moment Stanley Brailsford was dumbfounded. Then a slow smile
spread over his face. Briefly he stayed to watch Early Ann and
Peter sitting on the grassy bank with their arms around each other,
looking off across the lake.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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