YARNS

                                                   

                                                    

                     FAIRIES IN THE CORNFIELD

     As I was growing up I lived with my grandfather, Joe.  He had many interesting tales to tell, but the one I liked best was not one he told, but one about him, and it was told by someone else.  This is the story as told to me.

     In his early married life in the late 1870s Joe had a father-in-law who thought his daughter, my grandmother, had married beneath her station in life when she married Joe.

    

     In those days corn was cut with a "corn knife" and the corn stalks stacked in shocks by hand.  Every eight rows were cut, bundled, and shocked together, leaving one row of corn-shocks standing in the field where eight rows of corn had grown.  Shockers started around the outside edge of the field and worked toward the middle.  It took a long time and a lot of hard work to do all of this by hand.  Anyone passing by could see how much of the field had been shocked, and how much was left to be done.

     One year Joe raised a fine field of corn.  It was growing along the side of the road, in full view of passers-by.  All summer his father-in-law kept his eye on it, noting its progress.

     As the fall wore on, and there was no apparent indication that anyone was cutting this field, Joe's father-in-law kept hounding him: when he was going to get down to work and cut his corn?  Good weather was being wasted, soon the snow would begin to fly, and what was Joe doing anyway that he couldn't take proper care of his field?  Joe must be even lazier than he had thought!

     Unbeknown to his father-in-law, Joe had walked to the center of the field, counting the corn rows from the outside into the middle of the field, and began the unheard-of-thing by starting to shock that corn at the center of the field, and working outward.  While it looked from the road that no work had been done, the whole field had been shocked except for the eight outside rows.

     One day Joe said to his wife, "Tonight is the night!"  There was a bright full moon, a "harvest moon," and pleasant weather.  After finishing evening chores they began shocking those last eight rows and worked all night.

     The first few glimmers of dawn were beginning to show when they finished.  After taking care of their morning chores, they went to bed.

     That day as Joe's father-in-law was on his way to town he noticed the cornfield and could hardly believe his eyes!  He certainly had to have an explanation as to how that field had gotten shocked in less than one day!  He had seen it only the day before!

                                                      

     He went to find Joe.  He found no activity in any of the out-buildings, or in the fields.  The horses were home so he knew they hadn't gone far.  He entered the house looking for someone--and found the two of them in bed together at ten o'clock in the morning!  Disgraceful!

     After recovering from this shocking sight, he demanded an account of what had happened in the corn field.  The only statement Joe would give in explaining how his corn had been shocked was to say, "The fairies must have done it," and his father-in-law never did understand what had happened!

         

                             THE END