017
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Title
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017
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Transcription
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PRAIRIE FIRES
It hasn't rained for a month. The temperature ranges from 65 degrees in the morning to 105 in the afternoon. It seems that every day about 2:00 O'clock the wind blows from the south, and it feels as if it were blowing over a hot stove.
Everything is dry, and the grain fields that are not yet harvested are so ripe that a heavy wind shatters some of the grain on the ground. The only time it can be cut is in the early morning, or we lose half the crop.
Dad is cutting grain on the east eighty, and starts cutting early in the morning about sunup. I will take a fresh four-horse team to him about 9:00 O'clock so that he does not have to rest the team. I feel that I am grown up at age 10, because I can go to the barn, get the collar that fits each horse and lead them to the field. Dad will then remove the harness from the team he is working and put it on the fresh team that I bring. The harness will fit the team I have brought, but each horse has to have a collar that is specially fit, in order not to damage the animal.
It is the middle of August, 1917, at 10.00 O'clock in the morning, I have returned with the team that Dad used earlier. I take them to the water tank, then to the barn and feed them. It seems to me that the day is hotter than usual. By 11:00 O'clock the wind begins to blow and Dad comes home early, he says he is losing too much grain because it is so dry.
When I was a boy, dinner came at noon, and then a nap. We had just finished dinner and the telephone began to ring. It wasn't the regular long and short combination that calls some one to the phone, it was a series of short quick rings that lasted for only a few seconds. This was an emergency call and every one would get to the phone as fast possible.
Dad went to the phone, without saying a word to any one on the line, he quickly banged the receiver down, turned and said. " A fire on Dawes Forbes' place. The fire has jumped the fire guard." That means only one thing, the fire is heading for our place.
Dad grabbed his hat and gloves, and turned to me and motioned for me to come with him. We went to the barn, took the four horses he had been using, hitched one team to the wagon. I took the other team, rode one and led the other horse.
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Metzger Memories
